or: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate These are my first thoughts about the January / February 2024 LD resolution: Resolved: The United States ought to substantially reduce its military presence in the West Asia-North Africa region. I want to offer a clear disclaimer that these are off-the-cuff reactions, I have not done copious in-depth research on this topic, so these are not definitive thoughts. This is just a primer to get you thinking about the topic. You should take my observations with a grain of salt, and you should do the copious in-depth research to further your own understanding of key terms and arguments. Read the complete article below the fold. I’m going to do a lot of definitional work up top. If you’re just interested in the goods, skip to “Aff Ground.”
What is the West Asia-North Africa region? First, let’s talk about why we’re using the term “West Asia.” You might be more familiar with the term “Middle East,” but it's one that's perhaps fallen out of favor with folks who live in the region referred to by that name. The WANA Institute, based out of Jordan, argues that "Middle East" is an outdated and geographically ambiguous term. The Institute prefers "West Asia" primarily because the region is only east "when considered from the perspective of Europe." You can find similar takes here and here: "Middle East" is not a term preferred by many of the people who live in the region referred to by that moniker, and it only made sense geographically from the perspective of British colonialists ruling from London. East of what, after all? So what countries are included in WANA? Let’s be very clear that there’s no definitive list, there’s no one right answer. There will be large agreement on a list of core countries, but debate at the margins. Different sources will list different countries, and which countries at the margins are included or excluded will be a debate you have to have. The United Nations Statistics Division lists 25 countries in “Western Asia” and “Northern Africa.” Western Asia (18): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, State of Palestine, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen. Northern Africa (7): Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara. The most common definitions of North Africa, including that of the African Union, use the same list except they exclude Sudan. North Africa also arguably includes several minor Spanish, British, and Italian territories, as well as Malta. The definition of West Asia is much more contested. Many sources, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), include only 15 countries: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UAE, and Yemen. Others, including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, include Armenia and Azerbaijan (and exclude Israel and Turkey!). The UNSD excludes Iran and includes Turkey, Georgia, and Cyprus. There aren’t as many definitions of WANA as a whole. The agricultural think tank ICARDA lists 27 countries/territories in a 2011 study: “Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gaza Strip, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.” There are some notable things about these definitions. First, ICARDA includes Afghanistan, Djibouti, and Pakistan, which not many other lists do. Why am I focusing on those three? Well for starters, Djibouti contains Camp Lemonnier, the only US military base in Africa. Folks who enjoy debating at the margins of the topic might be eyeballing these larger lists. Then there are outlier lists like the UNIDO that exclude significant countries, like Turkey and Israel. Those who like (probably bad) topicality arguments might deploy those against teams that want to talk about Turkey and Israel. Again, there’s agreement on a major set of core countries. But there’s some very interesting marginal inclusions and exclusions that will be worth preparing for debates over. No list is automatically right: you need to debate the benefits of certain exclusions and inclusions in round. What’s military presence mean? On the last topic that used the term “military presence,” one of the most popular definitions was James Meernik’s definition of United States military presence as a U.S. military base. That might not work out great on this topic though, as North Africa does not have a single US military base. The only US military base in Africa is Camp Lemonnier in Djibiouti. That doesn’t mean there’s no North Africa part of the topic though, it means that the “military base” definition is perhaps undesirable on this topic – at least for the North Africa portion. So what is military presence, if not a base? It could be smaller infrastructures that houses US troops. These are often called lily pads, or Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs), and can have troop numbers from the single digits to the low hundreds. Much of our military presence in Africa is drones, so maybe drone infrastructure is military presence. What about arms sales, military aid, training, counter-terrorism, or joint military exercises? The United States doesn’t have many boots on the ground in countries like Israel or Egypt, but if arms sales, military aid, training, counter-terrorism, or joint military exercises are military presence, then that opens up a lot of aff ground. Are there other definitions that might be useful? Of Course! Here’s just a few:
So what WANA countries have US military presence? That’s the million dollar question! Bahrain has the 5th Fleet. Turkey has nukes. The majority of our troops are in the region are in Kuwait and Qatar, but a non-insignificant number are in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. We’ve got smaller numbers in Syria and Iraq, but they’re oriented around significant missions and operations. We have an enormous military relationship with Israel, but are things like military aid military presence (aff ground) or are they something less than presence (neg alt causes)? That’s a debate! What WANA countries have military presence? Answering that question would require us to agree on what West Asia is, what North Africa is, and what military presence is, and you shouldn’t believe anyone who tells you they know the answers to those questions. That’s a good thing! Topicality debates over what a topic include are fun. And on this topic, those debates could really matter. The United States has nuclear weapons in Turkey. Is Turkey West Asia? Are nukes military presence? The answers to those questions have huge implications for the topic. A note on “substantially reduce” and whole rez debate vs subsets “Substantially reduce” is pretty typical phrasing in policy resolutions, but may be more novel for LD. It may open up room for a couple of quirks that are worth talking about. Most obviously, it means that the aff does not need to defend a holistic or totalizing elimination of US military presence in WANA. If the neg says military presence in Israel is good, the aff could agree, and still be arguing for “substantially reducing” US military presence in WANA. This means the neg is going to have a hard time getting country-specific offense to link to whole-rez affs (this is a good thing, because this topic is cracked for the neg!). It could also open the door for subset affs to rear their head in Wyoming LD. What do I mean about subset affs? I mean affs that explicitly defend reducing military presence in just one or a few countries. For example, countries like Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Syria, and Turkey jump out to me as countries that could become focal points for subset affs. The 5th Fleet is located in Bahrain. The US has nuclear sharing with Turkey. Those could be affs just by themselves. One argument that subset affs are good on this topic is that a “one size fits all” approach to West Asia and North Africa is wrong-headed. US military presence in Tunisia is not the same as US military presence in Israel, and it might be foolhardy to treat them as the same. Certainly no policy-maker would treat Morocco the same as Iraq, and I would argue that no good philosopher would either. I would welcome the introduction of subset affs into the Wyoming LD ecosystem with open arms, but I would also offer significant cautions to any debater that tries to brave this path. On the one hand, the resolution explicitly allows for a less than total reduction of US military presence in WANA. That offers a persuasive point to make to lay judges (and progressive judges will likely already be amenable to hearing subset affs). I like the way subset affs would open up the topic, but it would still be reasonably limited by determining what is a substantial military presence in WANA. The 5th Fleet in Bahrain is definitely substantial, and the 10 soldiers in Algeria are definitely not. And what could be more substantial than the nuclear weapons the US houses in Turkey? I view the fact that there are some grey areas as a feature, not a bug – topicality debates over what should be included in the topic are both educational and exciting. On the other hand, many traditionally-oriented Wyoming LD coaches may reject subsets aff on face. I think debate should be what the debaters make it, but I also think judge adaptation trumps everything else. AFF GROUND Let’s talk about whole-rez affs first. There are four arguments I think will be common, but not great, aff arguments: The first is blowback: that US military presence generates anger and resentment. Maybe that’s bad for alliances, or causes conflict with countries like Iran, or maybe it creates motivation for terrorists to attack us. The second is escalation, or draw-in. This is the argument that US military presence overseas makes it likely that the US will be drawn into foreign conflicts. In some places US troops are intentionally placed there as a “tripwire,” meaning that if US troops are attacked the US will feel compelled to retaliate. Many will argue that America shouldn’t be the “world’s police” because it makes conflict more likely and great power escalation possible. The US won’t get into a war in West Asia if we aren’t in West Asia. Of course, you’ll need to win that conflict is more likely in WANA than other places. Otherwise US military presence in the Horn of Africa or East Asia become alt causes. The next is resource trade-off. This is the argument that the resources we use overseas would be better spent at home. Many argue that we would be better off spending those resources on our own citizens. Perhaps that means better healthcare, education, infrastructure, etc. Finally, there’s an imperialism argument that US military presence is modern-day imperialism. It’s certainly true that US power projection would be substantially weakened if our overseas military presence were curtailed. Related to this, on previous topics I’ve heard the argument that US military presence results in sexual violence committed by the troops. That said, I think these arguments suffer from a number of weaknesses. Chief among them is shift. What happens when we reduce our military presence? Those soldiers don’t simply disappear. They will go somewhere else. Where? I think that’s a question for a normal means debate, but I’d say Guam is a likely candidate. It has the capacity to house more presence, and we have a motive to put more troops there (containing China). If we just move our troops somewhere else for a different military objective, it quite possibly still causes all three of those impacts. This is not to say these arguments are non-starters (blowback and intervention/escalation seem more insulated), but, I’m far more interested in contentions that get more specific. The more specific your contentions are, the harder they are to refute. Arguments that are reasons all US military presence is bad is not the optimal defense of why WANA military presence is bad. Here is where we maybe arrive at a happy middle ground between whole-rez affs and subsets affs. An aff that defends a substantial reduction of military presence across all of WANA but that has contentions specific to particular countries may some benefits of both worlds. It can’t reduce negative link ground like a true subsets aff, but more specific contentions will still be more insulated against arguments like shift. So a 5th Fleet contention about Bahrain, a nuclear sharing contention about Turkey, these could be very strong args. I’d encourage aff teams to look at our specific military presence in specific places. One last argument I’m very interested in is the Asia Pivot. President Obama wanted to move a substantial portion of our military presence out of the Middle East and into East Asia, to bolster our Asian alliances and to contain China. Many believe the Asia pivot failed because we ultimately stayed too much in Middle Eastern countries. I think clever aff teams will explore saying that reducing military presence in WANA is the right move because increasing it in East Asia is good. This turns my “shift” argument on it’s head because it’s an argument that shift is good. NEG GROUND The two most important arguments on an foreign policy topic are deterrence and assurance. Deterrence, in debate terms, is about how US power stops “bad” actors from doing bad things. Reducing military presence could remove impediments from adversaries taking aggressive actions, or it could be a signal of weakness that encourages adversary action regardless of the military reality. So who are our adversaries in WANA? In West Asia, the obvious answer is Iran. Now I don’t think US military presence deters Iran from proliferation (developing nuclear weapons), but it might deter other forms of aggression or conflict. I think assurance is an even stronger argument. Assurance is about the signal we send to our allies. The neg argument here is that US military presence assures our allies that we will protect them, and thus they don’t need to take aggressive actions to protect themselves. An example of this would be arguing West Asia military presence is key to prevent Saudi Arabia from proliferating: that they fear an Iranian bomb, and in the absences of a credible US military presence to protect them, they’d develop a Saudi bomb to counter a potential Iranian threat. Another strong US ally in the region is Israel, and a reduction in our military presence in West Asia could definitely disrupt the US-Israel relationship. That could have a lot of potential consequences, and one of the most scary is that if Israel believed we lacked the will or capability to protect them, they might preemptively strike Iranian nuclear facilities, stoking an escalatory Iran war. Those are great arguments, but, there’s many more. Neg ground on this topic is excellent. Shift isn’t just a solvency deficit, it could be a disadvantage (neg contention). Just like you can argue the Asia Pivot is good, you can argue it’s bad. Perhaps a reduction in US military presence in WANA results in increased presence in East Asia to contain China, which aggravates China and stokes US-China tensions and even war. Another excellent argument is fill-in. Countries like Qatar don’t accept thousands of US troops on their soil because they ideologically agree with the United States global missions, they do it because they benefit economically and geopolitically from foreign military presence. If the US reduced its military presence, you can bet that Russia and China would be rushing to fill-in for us. That’s a great solvency takeout to a lot of whole-rez advantages, but it’s also a potential disad about increasing Russian/Chinese influence being dangerous. Counter-terrorism is another big negative argument, especially since that is the mission that most US troops in WANA are committed to. The neg can also make arguments about energy, maritime security, sea lanes, and trade routes. WANA includes major maritime choke points like the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. US hegemony and power projection is another core negative argument. Our bases in West Asia allow us military access to critical parts of the world, they’re essential to our ability to project power globally. Negative teams can also advance arguments about humanitarian missions our military engages in in WANA, like disaster relief. The neg can also argue that WANA missions are also NATO missions, and reducing presence there could undermine NATO cohesion. Like I said at the outset, these are all just first thoughts. There’s plenty more arguments to develop on both sides. If you’re willing to dip your toes into more progressive argumentation, there’s also plenty of fun counterplans. On the last military presence topic, I had particular success with a counterplan that argued we should keep our military presence in Africa, but repurpose the troops from counter-terror missions to environmental missions (protecting biodiverse areas from poaching, etc). Of course I’ve noted before that promoting counterplans in Wyoming LD gets me labelled a heretic, and you should always debate for the judge in front of you.
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