Hegemony

1NC
Drones are key to military readiness and heg
Rushforth 12 [Elinor J. Rushforth- JD candidate University of Arizona, Fall 2012, NOTE:
THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT: IMPLICATIONS OF ARMED DRONE ATTACKS AND
PERSONALITY STRIKES BY THE UNITED STATES AGAINST NON-CITIZENS, Arizona
Journal of International and Comparative Law, mm]

The drone program is a fixture in the Obama administration's fight against terror
n163 and the moral and legal defense the administration offers serves as an
indication that these attacks will continue. n164 Further, proponents of the drone program
argue their use reduces risk to U.S. service members, decreases American
weariness at foreign intervention, and minimizes civilian casualties during
attacks and missions. First, because asymmetric warfare has increased, the United
States has sought out creative ways to fight terrorists, insurgents, and asymmetric wars more
generally. n165 Despite controversy surrounding the drone program, it allows
surveillance and lethal missions without putting U.S. troops in harm's way. n166 This is
an almost incontrovertible positive factor when considering American public support for a new and technologically incredible program.
n167 Due to the lingering Overseas Contingency Operations, Americans are eager for some good news, and this program can deliver.

Drone operators are on the front lines of a new and more sophisticated type of
war and the information their surveillance missions provide can prove invaluable
to service members on the ground. n168 This dual benefit weighs heavily in favor of
drone proliferation. Drones can be [*649] deployed to survey and attack where it would otherwise be impractical for troops,
and a single pilot, to venture. n169 However, the analysis of this benefit must be separated between the two organizations employing
drones: the military and the CIA. n170 Drones are used for surveillance and killing by both organizations but usually with different purposes

The military has focused its drones primarily on tactical support of

ground forces, n172 either by providing information about enemy tactics or eliminating combatants entrenched in defended
positions. n173 The CIA uses drones to eliminate specific targets in remote areas in which conventional U.S.
in mind. n171

military action would be impossible. n174 During Operation Southern Watch, the military used drones to police no-fly zones in Iraq and
they were eventually used to target Iraqi radar systems during the second Iraq War. n175 In Operation Enduring Freedom, the military has

By providing
immediate battle damage assessment, drones enable commanders to determine if
further action is necessary, and provide a new perspective on the field. n177 In Operation
Iraqi Freedom, the armed drone retained and expanded its roles targeting anti-aircraft
vehicles, performing as a decoy revealing enemy positions, and aiding in a rescue
mission. n178 Based on these successes, military leaders maintain the value of drones . n179 The CIA's
expanded its use of armed drones to provide air support to ground operations and to act as "killer scouts." n176

use [*650] of drones facilitates U.S. attacks in environments where it is deemed too dangerous for ground troops to have a physical

The ability to protect American lives, keep military costs down, and
damage terrorist infrastructure and leadership is central to proponents' view of
this program. Second, the American public has grown tired of drawn-out conflicts and foreign intervention, and the drone
program offers a more palatable form of foreign involvement. n181 President Obama claims that
"it is time to focus on nation-building here at home" and, presumably, the drone program allows the
government to operate without deployment of ground troops to areas in which intervention is
presence. n180

deemed necessary, be it for humanitarian or military purposes. n182 Lethal operations, surveillance for U.S. military operations, and less

With a weary electorate, the Executive

can maintain a presence abroad militarily, while remaining able to argue that its
full focus is on protecting and growing our nation at home.
costly intervention all become possible when robots are the actual tools.

That solves great power conflict

Kagan, 2/19/2015 (Robert, Senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, Ph.D. in American history from American University,
The United States must resist a return to spheres of interest in the international system,
Brookings, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/02/19-united-statesmust-resist-return-to-spheres-of-interest-international-system-kagan)//JBS

Great power competition has returned . Or rather, it has reminded us that it was always lurking in the
background. This is not a minor development in international affairs, but it need not mean the end of the world order as
we know it. The

real impact of the return of great power competition will depend on

how the United States responds to these changes. America needs to recognize its
central role in maintaining the present liberal international order and muster the
will to use its still formidable power and influence to support that order against
its inevitable challengers. Competition in international affairs is natural. Great powers by their
very nature seek regional dominance and spheres of influence. They do so in the first
instance because influence over others is what defines a great power. They are, as a rule, countries imbued with national
pride and imperial ambition. But, living

in a Hobbesian world of other great powers, they are also nervous

defense-in-depth through the establishment of buffer states
on their periphery. Historically, great power wars often begin as arguments over
buffer states where spheres of influence intersectthe Balkans before World War I, for instance,
about their security and seek

where the ambitions of Russia and Austria-Hungary clashed. But todays great powers are rising in a very different
international environment, largely because of the unique role the United States has played since the end of the Second
World War. The

United States has been not simply a regional power, but rather a
regional power in every strategic region. It has served as the maintainer of
regional balances in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East . The result has been that, in
marked contrast to past eras, todays great powers do not face fundamental threats to their
physical security. So, for example, Russia objectively has never enjoyed greater security
in its history than it has since 1989. In the 20th century, Russia was invaded twice by
Germany, and in the aftermath of the second war could plausibly claim to fear another invasion unless adequately
protected. (France, after all, had the same fear.) In the 19th century, Russia was invaded by Napoleon, and
before that Catherine the Great is supposed to have uttered that quintessentially Russian observation, I have no way to
defend my borders but to extend them. Today

that is not true. Russia faces no threat of

invasion from the West. Who would launch such an invasion? Germany, Estonia, Ukraine? If Russia faces threats,
they are from the south, in the form of militant Islamists, or from the east, in the form of a billion Chinese standing across
the border from an empty Siberia. But for the first time in Russias long history, it does not face a strategic threat on its
western flank. Much

the same can be said of China, which enjoys far greater security
than it has at any time in the last three centuries. The American role in East Asia protects it from
invasion by its historic adversary, Japan, while none of the other great powers around Chinas periphery have the strength
or desire now or in the foreseeable future to launch an attack on Chinese territory. Therefore, neither

Chinese
nor Russians can claim that a sphere of influence is necessary for their defense.
They may feel it necessary for their sense of pride. They may feel it is necessary as a way of restoring their wounded honor.
They may seek an expanded sphere of influence to fulfill their ambition to become more formidable powers on the
international stage. And they may have concerns that free, nations on their periphery may pass the liberal infection onto
their own populaces and thus undermine their autocratic power. The

question for the United States, and its

allies in Asia and Europe, is whether we should tolerate a return to sphere of influence
behavior among regional powers that are not seeking security but are in search of status, powers
that are acting less out of fear than out of ambition. This question, in the end, is not about idealism, our commitment to a
rules-based international order, or our principled opposition to territorial aggression. Yes, there are important

principles at stake: neighbors shouldnt invade their neighbors to seize their territory. But before we get to issues of
principle,

we need to understand how such behavior affects the world in terms of

On that score, the historical record is very clear. To return to a world

of spheres of influencethe world that existed prior to the era of American predominance
is to return to the great power conflicts of past centuries . Revisionist great
powers are never satisfied . Their sphere of influence is never quite large enough
to satisfy their pride or their expanding need for security. The satiated power that Bismarck
basic stability

spoke of is rareeven his Germany, in the end, could not be satiated. Of course, rising great powers always express some
historical grievance. Every people, except perhaps for the fortunate Americans, have reason for resentment at ancient
injustices, nurse grudges against old adversaries, seek to return to a glorious past that was stolen from them by military or
political defeat. The worlds supply of grievances is inexhaustible. These grievances, however, are

rarely

solved by minor border changes. Japan, the aggrieved have-not nation of the 1930s, did not satisfy itself
by swallowing Manchuria in 1931. Germany, the aggrieved victim of Versailles, did not satisfy itself by
bringing the Germans of the Sudetenland back into the fol d. And, of course, Russias
historical sphere of influence does not end in Ukraine. It begins in Ukraine . It
extends to the Balts, to the Balkans, and to heart of Central Europe. The tragic irony is that, in the process of
carving out these spheres of influence, the ambitious rising powers invariably
create the very threats they use to justify their actions. Japan did exactly that in the 30s. In the
1920s, following the Washington Naval Treaty, Japan was a relatively secure country that through a combination of
ambition and paranoia launched itself on a quest for an expanded sphere of influence, thus inspiring the great power
enmity that the Japanese had originally feared. One sees a similar dynamic in Russias behavior today. No one in the West
was thinking about containing Russia until Russia made itself into a power that needed to be contained. If history is any
lesson, such

behavior only ends when other great powers decide they have had
enough. We know those moments as major power wars . The best and easiest time
to stop such a dynamic is at the beginning. If the United States wants to maintain
a benevolent world order, it must not permit spheres of influence to serve as a
pretext for aggression . The United States needs to make clear nowbefore things get out of handthat this is
not a world order that it will accept. And we need to be clear what that response entails. Great

powers of course
compete across multiple sphereseconomic, ideological, and political, as well as
military. Competition in most spheres is necessary and even healthy. Within the liberal order, China can
compete economically and successfully with the United States; Russia can thrive
in the international economic order uphold by the liberal powers , even if it is not itself
liberal. But security competition is different . It is specifically because Russia could not
compete with the West ideologically or economically that Putin resorted to
military means. In so doing, he attacked the underlying security and stability at the
core of the liberal order. The security situation undergirds everythingwithout it nothing else functions.
Democracy and prosperity cannot flourish without security. It remains true today as it has
only the United States has the capacity and the unique
geographical advantages to provide this security . There is no stable balance of

since the Second World War that

power in Europe or Asia without the United States . And while we can talk about

soft power and smart power, they have been and always will be of limited value
when confronting raw military power. Despite all of the loose talk of American
decline, it is in the military realm where U.S. advantages remain clearest. Even in
other great powers backyards, the United States retains the capacity, along with
its powerful allies, to deter challenges to the security order. But without a U.S.
willingness to use military power to establish balance in far-flung regions of the

world, the system will buckle under the unrestrained military competition of
regional powers.