Russia Adv – 1ac

Space Weap k2 Heg

Space Weaponization is key to terrestrial hegemony – offensive deterrence and improved force posture

Doleman 10 – Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the US Air Forces School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (US Military Transformation and Weapons in Space, http://www.e-parl.net/pages/space_hearing_images/Backgrounder%20Dolman%20US%20Weapons%20in%20Space.pdf)
What kind of force structure should a liberal democratic state maintain, both to ensure its continuing internal liberalism and to promote democracy abroad? I argue in The Warrior State (Routledge, 2005) that such a military should be offensively (outward) oriented and a poor occupier of territory. Space weapons are outward looking by their very nature. They offer no advantage if the target set considered is not global. This means they are also offensive in nature. The defensively organized military must establish itself as an occupier of territory. The offensively organized force can have that function, but it is not necessary. An offensively organized force that is a poor occupier of territory is in fact the most suitable for participatory or democratic governments (as it is not likely to intervene in domestic politics) and is less threatening to the inter-state environment than one organized for both offensive actions and occupation. A state employing offensive deterrence through space-weapons can punish a transgressor state, but is in a poor position to challenge its sovereignty. The transgressor state is less likely to succumb to the security dilemma if it perceives its national survival is not at risk. States employing this offensive/non-occupational doctrinal structure need to maintain a military defensive capacity just sufficient to ensure its offensive capability is secure—not its entire territory. If competing states have adequate punitive deterrent offensive capacity, but neither can efficiently occupy the territory of the other, the inter-state environment should be more stable. Without the capacity to occupy territory directly, the fears of other states will not diminish if a robust space bombardment capacity is available in preparation or support of a conventional invasion. Here is where the tremendous expense of space weapons inhibits their indiscriminate use, and more importantly shapes the remainder of the US force structure. Over time, the world of sovereign states will recognize that the US does not threaten self-determination internally, though it challenges any attempts to intervene militarily in the politics of others, and has severely restricted its own capacity to do so. With such a force structure in place, the world’s first liberal democracy is strengthened internally, and the community of states will find itself less threatened. America will maintain the capacity to influence events beyond its borders, with military force if necessary. Transformation of the American military assures that the intentions of current and future leaders will have but a minor role to play in international affairs. The limited requirement for collateral damage, need for precision to allay the low volume of fire, and tremendous cost of space weapons will guarantee they are used only for high value, time sensitive targets. Whether or not the United States desires to be a good neighbor is not necessary to an opposing state’s calculation of survival. Weapons in space do not threaten its sovereignty. In this way, structural context constrains the use of space weapons, and detracts from the employing state’s capacity to exert external control (while maximizing its capacity for external influence). Without sovereignty at risk, fear of a space-dominant American military will subside over time. The US will maintain its hegemony as well as its security, and the world will be less threatened by the specter of a future American empire.

Space Weap k2 Posture

Status Quo Force posture will cause inevitable overstretch means their backlash DA’s are inevitable – deterrence based force posture is key

Klare, 10 - Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, whose department is located at Hampshire College, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine, and author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (Michael, “'Two, Three, Many Afghanistans'”, 4/8, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/issue/april-26-2010)
Now we have President Obama and his domineering Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, both of whom have criticized the Pentagon's emphasis on conventional combat at the expense of low-intensity

warfare. Iraq, Obama has said, was the "wrong" war, a distraction from the more urgent task of defeating Al Qaeda and its network of allies, including the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. To rectify this strategic bungling, as he sees it, Obama has been redeploying combat resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. But this is just the beginning of his grand vision: Obama seeks to fashion a new military posture that shifts the emphasis from conventional combat to brush-fire wars and counterinsurgency. "The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama declared at West Point on December 1. "Unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the twentieth century, our effort will involve disorderly regions, failed states, diffuse enemies." To prevail in these contests, "we'll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where Al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold--whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere--they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships." Clearly, this is a long-term strategy with far-reaching implications. Even if Obama brings some forces back from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011, as he has pledged, US troops are likely to be engaged there (some perhaps in a covert mode) and in a number of other hot spots--"two, three, many Afghanistans," to put Che's dictum into contemporary parlance. This strategy, first enunciated in a series of speeches by Obama and Gates, has been given formal character in the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon's Congressionally mandated overhaul of strategy. Released on February 1, the QDR is expected to guide military planning over the next four years and to govern the Pentagon's budget priorities. Like earlier Pentagon reviews, the 2010 QDR begins by reaffirming America's stature as a global power with global responsibilities--a burden no other country can shoulder. "The strength and influence of the United States are deeply intertwined with the fate of the broader international system," the document asserts. "The U.S. military must therefore be prepared to support broad national goals of promoting stability in key regions, providing assistance to nations in need, and promoting the common good." But while this globalist mission has remained unchanged for many decades, the nature of the threats confronted by American forces has changed dramatically. "The United States faces a complex and uncertain security landscape in which the pace of change continues to accelerate," the QDR indicates. "The rise of new powers, the growing influence of non-state actors, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and other destructive enabling technologies...pose profound challenges to international order." The United States also faces a danger not unlike that envisioned by Kennedy in 1961: the emergence of radical insurgencies in the corrupt and decaying nations of the developing world. "The changing international system will continue to put pressure on the modern state system, likely increasing the frequency and severity of the challenges associated with chronically fragile states," the QDR notes. "These states are often catalysts for the growth of radicalism and extremism." In this environment, America's traditional advantages in conventional conflict--what the QDR calls "large-scale force-on-force warfare"--can no longer guarantee success. Instead, the US military must be prepared to prevail in any number of conceivable combat scenarios and employ the same sort of novel warfighting tactics as those used by America's rivals and adversaries. Our principal objective, the QDR affirms, is "ensuring that US forces are flexible and adaptable so that they can confront the full range of challenges that could emerge from a complex and dynamic security environment." Within this mandate, no priority is given greater weight than the task of preparing for an unending series of counterinsurgency campaigns in remote corners of the developing world. "The wars we are fighting today and assessments of the future security environment together demand that the United States retain and enhance a whole-of-government capability to succeed in large-scale counterinsurgency (COIN), stability, and counterterrorism (CT) operations in environments ranging from densely populated urban areas and mega-cities, to remote mountains, deserts, jungles, and littoral regions," the QDR explains. The language used here is instructive--both in the degree to which it reveals current Pentagon thinking and the ways it echoes Kennedy's outlook. "Stability operations, large-scale counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism operations are not niche challenges or the responsibility of a single Military Department, but rather require a portfolio of capabilities as well as sufficient capacity from across America's Armed Forces," the QDR states. "Nor are these type of operations a transitory or anomalous phenomenon in the security landscape. On the contrary, we must expect that for the indefinite future, violent extremist groups, with or without state sponsorship, will continue to foment instability and challenge U.S. and allied interests." As a result, "U.S. forces will need to maintain a high level of competency in this mission area for decades to come." (Emphasis added.) As the QDR makes plain, this will require substantial retooling of military capabilities. In place of "large-scale force-on-force warfare," the Pentagon must be configured to fight many small-scale conflicts in dissimilar locations on several continents at once. This requires that forces be equipped for counterinsurgency-type operations: helicopters, small arms, body armor, night-vision devices, mine-resistant vehicles, aerial gunships, surveillance drones and the like. Some of this material has already been provided to forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the entire military will have to be re-equipped. Also required will be increased military aid and training (provided by growing cadres of Special Forces) for the military and police forces of embattled governments in fraying Third World states. "Terrorist groups seek to evade security forces by exploiting ungoverned and under-governed areas as safe havens from which to recruit, indoctrinate, and train fighters," the QDR notes. "Where appropriate, U.S. forces will work with the military forces of partner nations to strengthen their capacity for internal security.... For reasons of political legitimacy as well as sheer economic necessity, there is no substitute for professional, motivated local security forces protecting populations threatened by insurgents and terrorists in their midst." Except for a slight modernization of terminology, these are exactly the words used by Kennedy to justify the deployment of thousands of counterinsurgency "advisers" in Vietnam, plus hundreds more in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. The danger is that America's "partner nations" are not capable of deploying "professional, motivated" forces, so US soldiers will be compelled to shoulder an ever-increasing share of the burden. As proved true in Vietnam--and as is being repeated today in Afghanistan--this will likely be the case when the local army and police are viewed by the majority of the population as tools of a corrupt and unresponsive government. What should be cause for alarm is that despite the worrisome picture in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is determined to export this model to other areas, many for the first time, including Africa. "The need to assist fragile, post-conflict states, such as Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan, and failed states such as Somalia, and transnational problems, including extremism, piracy, illegal fishing, and narcotics trafficking, pose significant challenges," the document notes. "America's efforts will hinge on partnering with African states, other international allies and partners, and regional and sub-regional security organizations to conduct capacity-building and peacekeeping operations, prevent terrorism, and address humanitarian crises." The United States is already assisting the Ugandan government in its seemingly futile efforts to eradicate the Lord's Resistance Army, a brutal guerrilla group with no discernible ideology, as well as the Somali government in its (equally futile) campaign to rid Mogadishu of Al Shabab, a militant Islamic group linked to Al Qaeda. It is likely that advisory teams from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, are engaged in similar operations in North Africa and the Sahel. (The CJTF-HOA is the combat arm of the US Africa Command, a multiservice headquarters organization established by Bush in 2008 and given expanded responsibilities since then by Obama.) The Pentagon is also supporting counterinsurgency operations in Colombia, the Philippines and Yemen, among other countries. Typically, these operations entail deploying training and advisory teams, providing arms and intelligence information, and employing (often covert) specialized combat units. According to the QDR, "U.S. forces are working in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Colombia, and elsewhere to provide training, equipment, and advice to their host-country counterparts on how to better seek out and dismantle terrorist and insurgent networks while providing security to populations that have been intimidated by violent elements in their midst." Again, one must ask, Just how deeply is the United States involved? Where is this leading? What happens when the "host-country counterparts" prove unequal to the task? The worry that this will lead to an endless series of Vietnam- or Afghanistan-like counterinsurgencies is further heightened by the QDR's call for increased reliance on social scientists to better comprehend the perplexing social and cultural realities of these faraway places. Under its Minerva Initiative, the Defense Department is seeking "the intellectual capital necessary to meet the challenges of operating in a changing and complex environment." For those whose memory stretches back far enough, this will recall the infamous Project Camelot, a Vietnam-era Army effort to secure academic assistance in assessing public attitudes in Third World countries for counterinsurgency purposes. The greatest risk in all this, of course, is that the military will become bogged down in a constellation of grueling, low-level wars. This is the prospect of "imperial over-stretch" spoken of by Yale historian Paul Kennedy in his 1987 classic, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. It is also, says Fareed Zakaria in The Post-American World, the scenario we must avoid if the United States is to escape the fate of the British Empire and other failed imperiums. "Britain's strategic blunder was to spend decades--time and money, energy and attention--on vain attempts to stabilize peripheral places on the map," Zakaria wrote in 2008. "The United States could easily fall into a similar imperial trap." The Pentagon's renewed commitment to counterinsurgency and low-intensity warfare will also require a substantial investment in new hardware at a time when the country faces a record deficit, further eroding its long-term vitality. To obtain the added funds he deems necessary, Gates has asked for an $18 billion increase in the Pentagon's base budget for the 2011 fiscal year, raising total spending to $549 billion (which does not include combat costs in Iraq and Afghanistan). To gain additional financing for these projects, he has been willing to sacrifice some big-ticket items intended for major conventional wars, such as the F-22 jet fighter (discontinued in 2009). Gates calls this shift in emphasis "rebalancing," and it is said to be the guiding principle of the new Pentagon budget. "Rebalancing our forces in support of these strategic priorities means that US forces must be flexible and adaptable to confront the full range of plausible challenges," Under Secretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy, one of the QDR's principal authors, told a Pentagon press briefing on February 1. "To underwrite this flexibility...we need more and better enabling capabilities...like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rotary-wing aircraft, language skills and so forth." The danger here is that Congress--prodded by powerful interests in the military-industrial complex--will approve the specialized counterinsurgency equipment sought by Gates and Flournoy, as well as an array of costly, super-sophisticated weapons designed to fight a full-scale war with some future, Soviet-like "peer" competitor. Under these circumstances, the Pentagon budget will continue to grow. The Obama-Gates strategy thus entails a double peril. On the one hand, it risks involvement in an endless series of wars, wearing down the military and turning more and more non-Westerners against the United States--exactly the outcome envisioned by Che in his famous 1967 dictum. On the other hand, the "rebalancing" sought by Gates could lead to higher spending on low-intensity hardware while failing to curb investment in high-end weaponry, thereby producing ever-increasing military budgets, a growing national deficit and persistent economic paralysis. In the worst case, both outcomes will occur, dooming the United States to retreat, humiliation and penury. There is no reason to doubt that Obama and Gates believe they are acting in the nation's--and the world's--best interest by advocating a strategy of global counterinsurgency. Such a strategy could conceivably prevent Al Qaeda from gaining a temporary foothold in some "ungovernable area" on the fringe of the Islamic world. But it will not eliminate the conditions that give rise to Islamist extremism, nor will it ensure lasting peace. The Pentagon's new strategy can only lead, in the end, to a world of increased anti-Americanism and violence.
Space Weaponization is the ONLY internal link to a deterrence based force posture status quo efforts means its try or die for the aff

Doleman 10 – Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the US Air Forces School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (US Military Transformation and Weapons in Space, http://www.e-parl.net/pages/space_hearing_images/Backgrounder%20Dolman%20US%20Weapons%20in%20Space.pdf)
In his January 2002 speech on transformation, Secretary Rumsfeld stated that the United States must move toward a more realistic and balanced assessment of its military requirements, and in so doing away from the notion of large occupational forces and toward a greater emphasis on deterrence in critical theaters. Deterrence could be achieved by maintaining the capacity to swiftly defeat aggressors before they engage on American soil – in their home states – backed by the option for a massive counter-offensive to temporarily occupy an aggressor’s capital and replace the regime. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz followed up in his address to Naval War College graduates in 2003, saying military “transformation means … more than a mechanical change, [it is] profound change … in the way we think and the way we organize; it is properly described as a cultural change.” In previous testimony to the United States Senate a year earlier, Wolfowitz explained that transformation first entails a perceptual revolution. The modern military structure must encourage innovation and intelligent risk taking. It must adopt a proactive stance in a brave new world where change is the only constant. Weapons and procedures must be cultivated that will increase American military capability while at the same time changing the way in which war is fought. Transformation will occur in a series of graduated changes that alter the force structure and equipment with which war is waged, move away from the two Major Theater War (MTW) force-planning construct, and implement a new framework for assessing risk. “In short,” Wolfowitz declared, “our operational emphasis now is on flexibility, speed, and jointness.” Rumsfeld’s and Wolfowitz’s comments, if accurate, amount to a classic Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). The exemplary RMA is the gunpowder revolution that changed not only the form of combat in Europe, but its social and economic fabric as well. The ongoing RMA, if it lives up to the billing, will have equally profound effects. Change is expected in force structure, doctrine, and tactics. Economic and social change, in the latter case, in the structure of international society, should be anticipated. I have already described the place of precision and discrimination in the new American way of war. The broader changes of the precision RMA will be the result of a reliance on space weapons as the eventual backbone of American military power. Innovation in warfare is generally first evident in tactical weapons development. The general trend has been to enhance the lethality of weapons, through increases in accuracy, rates of fire, destructive yield, or a combination of the three. Increase in precision of fire is generally preferable to increases in rate of fire or destructive yield. Both the latter options tend to swell the physical size and production expense of weaponry and the devastation around the target – if nothing else, reducing the value of loot. Precision of fire in weapons themselves generally occurs with advances in technology, the ability to control the direction and path of the weapon en route to the target (be it a soldier, ship, or heavy division) through technology and organizational change. Precision is gained as well with superior intelligence and stealthier movement. Better intelligence provides a reduced target set, further requiring fewer shots and less destructive means. Stealth allows the weapon to get closer to the target before engaging, a reduction in range that benefits accuracy and aids in discrimination. The capacity accurately or precisely to engage a target at distances beyond the range of an opponent’s weapons is a standoff capability. Catapults in Medieval sieges and HARM cruise missiles today demonstrate standoff capability. Revolutions require more than changes in technical nuance, however. The organization of the armed forces and, of necessity, the character of governing must also be deeply affected. The first to comprehensively articulate the association between military organization and government was German social historian Otto Hintze. His observations began with the comment: ‘The form and spirit of the states’ organization will [be] determined primarily by the necessities of defense.’ According to Hintze, relations between state and military organizations are a continuous and adaptive historical process, placed in the context of the positional ordering of the state system—in other words, the balance of power. Others had noted the association, if not so systematically, but precisely how military organization determined political form was undetermined. Hintze offered a structural explanation. The military, he stated, is customarily understood to have two primary roles: defense of the state from external threat and defense of the government from internal rebellion. The former role is conducive to liberty and democracy, for it protects and nurtures society. Without a military force to shelter it, democratic society would fall prey to neighboring expansionist authoritarian states. The latter role is obviously not so conducive, as the military becomes a tool of oppression. Hintze therefore espoused that a military structure dominated by the army is prone to succumbing to the latter role, but one dominated by the navy is not. Hintze argued that this was due to the capacity of outward force protection inherent in boats—vice boots. I have argued elsewhere that it is simply because the navy is not well suited for territorial occupation. For these reasons, nations that have traditionally relied on naval power for state security (e.g. Britain and the United States) developed relatively more democratic and enlightened constitutions than their land-power contemporaries did. Problematic for political idealists, however, is that militarily influenced governing structure was for Hintze geopolitically determined. Reliance on a navy is not possible in a land-locked state surrounded by hostile powers. To survive, a strong army is paramount. The good political fortune of Britain and the United States came from their isolated island and continental positions, not from any conscious decision to pursue liberal leaning naval over land power. Force structure, (at least partially) dependent on geopolitical factors, becomes the critical intervening variable determining the general character of government and interstate relations. A military organized for territorial control or expansion must of necessity have occupational capacities or functions. This means the military must have a police capacity, an ability to pacify the newly acquired subject population and to defend territory. The liberal determinist capacity of navies resides in the potential for strong outward force projection (equated here to offensive capacity and an extremely limited aptitude for internal policing). Despite some well-known examples of naval power forcing international political concessions, and spearheading successful democratic revolutions, its ability to coerce the broader citizenry is historically poor. This fits with the purpose of naval force, to challenge or command the sea. Battle fleets are extremely feeble tools of internal repression. The purpose of armies is to traverse, take, pacify, and hold territory. This function readily transforms to police control functions, limiting through capacity for direct coercion the public exploration of enhanced liberal democratic development. The argument here is the liberalizing influence historically associated with navies should focus on its traditional organization for offensive or external operations, while armies are more often (than navies) organized for defense. When infantries are employed primarily on foreign campaigns, as are those of the US, their democratizing influence is maximized by omission. It is this doctrinal focus on offense over defense, combined with a limited or weak structural capacity for territorial occupation that determines the trajectory toward or away from democracy.
A deterrence based force posture is key to international stability—loss of it triggers multiple scenarios for nuclear war

Brookes 08 – Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. He is also a member of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Peter, Heritage, Why the World Still Needs America's Military Might, November 24, 2008)
Let's conjure up for a moment what a world without American mil­itary power might look like. Let's start with the Korean Peninsula. Ever since the cease-fire agreement between North Korean and Chinese forces and the United Nations was concluded in 1953, the United States military has been the predominant force reducing the risk of another conflict on the divided Korean Peninsula. Indeed, even today--55 years hence--an American four-star general leads the Combined Forces Command of U.S. and Republic of Korea forces that keep the peace against a North Korean regime that still harbors dreams of uniting--militarily if necessary--the North and South under its despotic rule. Nearly 30,000 U.S. soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder with 650,000 South Korean forces across a surely misnamed demilitarized zone (DMZ)-- arguably the last vestige of the Cold War--deter ring over one million, ideologically driven North Korean troops. Even though peace has not been officially declared between the two nations, the odds of a conflict breaking out across the DMZ remain slim due to America's commitment to stability on the peninsula. I would suggest that absent the presence of American forces and the military might behind it, including an extension the U.S.'s nuclear umbrella to South Korea, the history of the past 50 years might be quite different from what has been record ed today. A second Korean war has been--and still is--a distinct but unfortunate possibility, and I would speculate that a new war would be even more horrific than the last, if that is possible. In March 2008, a North Korean news reader on state television said that if the South Korean govern ment made even the slightest gesture of an attack, "Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike once begins." Considering that the capital of South Korea-- Seoul, a city of more than 10 million--lies within range of 10,000 pieces of Korean People's Army artillery, which could rain an estimated one million rounds on the city in the opening hours of a con flict, I think we have to take that commentator at his word. Japan And what about Japan? American military might has been primarily responsible for Japanese security since the end of World War II. This has not only allowed Japan to prosper economically and politically--like South Korea and Germany, I might add--but has also kept Japan at peace with its neighbors. The presence of U.S. forces and the American nuclear deterrent has also kept Japan from exercis ing a nuclear option that many believe it might take, considering the rise of China, North Korea's nuclear breakout, its advanced scientific and technical capa bilities, and indigenous nuclear power industry--a producer of a significant amount of fissile material from its reactors. Political and historical considerations aside, many believe that Japan could quickly join the once-exclu­sive nuclear weapons club if it chose to do so, resulting in unforetold challenges to regional security. China and Taiwan Further to the south, what about stability across the Taiwan Strait? We know that China is undergoing a major mil itary buildup, especially involving its power projec tion forces--i.e., air force, navy, and ballistic missile forces, all aimed at Taiwan. Indeed, today Beijing has the world's third largest defense budget and the world's fastest growing peacetime defense budget, growing at over 10 percent per year for over a decade. It increased its defense budget nearly 18 percent annually over the past two years. I would daresay that military tensions across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China would be much greater today if not for an implied commitment on the part of the United States to prevent a change in the political status quo via military means. China hasn't renounced the use of force against its neighbor and rival, Taiwan, a vibrant, free-market democracy. It is believed by many analysts that absent American military might, China would quickly unite Taiwan with the main land under force of arms. In general, the system of military alliances in Asia that the United States maintains provides the basis for stability in the Pacific, since the region has failed to develop an overarching security architecture such as that found in Europe in NATO. Europe, Russia, and NATO And what of Europe? I hope we can all agree that NATO was a critical element in the security of Europe during the Cold War. In fact, I would argue that American military power was a sine qua non of NATO's success during the Cold War. Today, the likelihood of a major war in Europe is thankfully just about nil, but troubling issues such as Bosnia and Kosovo have required American mil itary participation--and leadership. But what about the resurgence of Russia on the edges of NATO and the European Union? Which direction will Moscow take in the years to come? It's not fully clear, but some of the signs are quite ominous. We do know that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised a nearly 30 percent increase in the Russian defense budget for 2009 for reasons that can only be associated with a desire by Moscow to exert increasing leverage in its tradition al sphere of influence--and perhaps beyond. We also know Russia has conducted more ballistic mis sile tests this year than any year since the end of the Cold War. We further know that the Kremlin has planted a flag on the seabed at the North Pole, asserting claims to an area the size of France, Germany, and Italy combined--an area which may hold one-third of the world's total undiscovered energy reserves. Russian action in Georgia and threats against Ukraine aren't comforting, either. Considering the weak defense spending in Europe, who will be able to stand up to this new Russia if necessary? I would suggest that, absent American military might, NATO--or any future European defense force--might be little more than a paper tiger in the shadow of the Russian bear. And who will provide balance to Iran's rise in the Middle East? It's my view that Iran has grand ambi tions for itself, including regional hegemony, attempting to exert its influence across the Middle East from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Which country's military is capable of projecting sufficient power into that part of the world to pre vent such a potentially destabilizing turn of events? Only the United States. The same is true for the U.S.-NATO operations in Afghanistan and Coalition operations in Iraq today. Few--if any--countries today could sustain power-projection operations for so long so far from their shores. Beyond Geopolitics And beyond geopolitics? The United States military has also been a central player in the attempts to halt weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile proliferation. In 2003, President Bush created the Prolifera tion Security Initiative (PSI), an initiative to counter the spread of WMD and their delivery systems throughout the world. The U.S. military's capabili ties help put teeth in the PSI, a voluntary, multilat eral organization of 90-plus nations which uses national laws and joint military operations to fight proliferation. While many of the PSI's efforts aren't made pub lic due to the potential for revealing sensitive intel ligence sources and methods, some operations do make their way to the media. For instance, accord ing to the U.S. State Department, the PSI stopped exports to Iran's missile program and heavy water- related equipment to Tehran's nuclear program, which many believe is actually a nuclear weapons program. In the same vein, the United States is also devel oping the world's most prodigious-ever ballistic missile defense system to protect the American homeland, its deployed troops, allies, and friends, including Europe. While missile defense has its crit ics, it may provide the best answer to the spread of ballistic missiles and the unconventional payloads, including the WMD, they may carry. Unfortunately, the missile and WMD prolifera tion trend is not positive. For instance, 10 years ago, there were only six nuclear weapons states. Today there are nine members of the once-exclusive nucle ar weapons club, with Iran perhaps knocking at the door. Twenty-five years ago, nine countries had bal listic missiles. Today, there are 28 countries with ballistic missile arsenals of varying degrees. This defensive system will not only provide deter rence to the use of these weapons, but also provide policymakers with a greater range of options in pre venting or responding to such attacks, whether from a state or non-state actor. Perhaps General Trey Obering, the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, said it best when describing the value of missile defense in countering the grow ing threat of WMD and delivery system prolifera tion: "I believe that one of the reasons we've seen the proliferation of these missiles in the past is that there has historically been no defense against them." In 2007, the United States also created a new command called AFRICOM--Pentagonese for Afri can Command. Its purpose is to use American forc es and resources to promote peace and stability across the vast African continent. The U.S. military's mission is to support and train armed forces in Afri can states and regional security arrangements so they can appropriately respond to threats, evolving crises, or even humanitarian disasters such as the genocide in Darfur. In addition, US defense intelligence assets, espe cially satellites, provide critical information to allied governments and the international community, including early warning of crises and ongoing sup port during emergencies or hostilities. For example, U.S. intelligence collection was critical in the Colombian army's rescue of 15 hostages held by the FARC guerilla group, including a former presiden tial candidate, this past summer. The reach of the U.S. military was also critical in providing aid to tsunami victims in Southeast Asia and the devastating earthquake in Pakistan. The American medical ship USNS Mercy and the amphibious ship USS Kearsarge conduct numerous humanitarian missions around the world every year, bringing much-needed care to those in need. Moreover, the U.S. Navy patrols the world's oceans--free of charge, I might add--providing freedom of the seas and protecting against sea ban ditry and piracy, which is a growing problem, espe cially in Southeast Asia and off the Horn of Africa. Indeed, should Iran attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway which carries 20 per cent-40 percent of the world's oil supply, which it has threatened to do on numerous occasions, the U.S. Navy is the only maritime force in the world today that could effectively intervene to keep it open--or would be willing to do so. In addition to stationing more than 150,000 of its brave young men and women overseas in Europe and Asia, often far from kith and kin, in pursuit of peace and stability, the American military also sup ports the over 100,000 troops involved in U.N. peacekeeping operations around the globe. Not only does the U.S. provide the lion's share of the U.N. budget, including peacekeeping, but it also provides soldiers; arguably more important, Ameri ca's armed forces provide critical logistics, strategic lift, and intelligence support to these forces. In fact, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that U.N. peacekeeping just can't be done without Amer ican involvement. Lastly, U.S. military research has supported the development of new technologies which often find their way to benefit the civilian sector--technolo gies which directly and indirectly support stability. These innovations include information technology, such as the creation of the Internet, communica tions, aviation, space systems, medicine, nuclear and alternative fuels, and even clean water technol ogy--a critical need in the developing world today. An Unsought Duty Of course, in my view, this is just a cursory reflection on the importance of U.S. military power in the world today. There is also the history that stretches back to the liberation of Kuwait, not to mention the sacrifices in blood and treasure made in the last century during the Cold War and the con flicts in Vietnam, Korea, Europe, and Asia. The United States has achieved a particular fate-- one I'm not sure it would have chosen for itself. Fol­lowing great wars in Europe and Asia in the last century, we--the Americans--found ourselves fully enmeshed in the fate of the international order. To paraphrase a Founding Father, James Madison, Americans would much prefer to be the friends of liberty everywhere but the guardians only of our own. And to quote a former U.S. Senator, "America is not an imperial power, but it has become, in the absence of other alternatives, a kind of managerial power. It is no longer safe to ignore in principle what necessity has required us to accept in practice." Unfortunately, in the role of helping to provide for global stability, as a practical matter, there is nobody else to relieve the United States of this duty--at least for the moment. While some would like to see the United Nations in this role, it has been nothing short of a disappointment. The U.N., in its current configuration, is fundamentally inca pable of carrying out its original purposes--pre venting and responding to aggression. In truth, while the U.N. means well, and often does well especially on humanitarian issues, it is hamstrung by its own diversity of values and interests, leaving it often quite feckless in dealing with the security matters that everyone agrees require action.