Tournament: Saint Marks | Round: 1 | Opponent: GBN HK | Judge: Eric Oddo

1ac – plan

PLAN

The United States federal government should normalize trade relations with Cuba.

1ac – ag

CONTENTION 1 IS CUBAN AGRICULTURE

Global industrial agriculture is unsustainable

*global agriculture is unsustainable – other countries’ technology is insufficient, several reasons:
a. environmental degradation – industrial farming techniques use highly concentrated fertilizers and chemicals which cause soil erosion, destroy pollinating insects such as bees – makes collapse of crop yields inevitable
b. population growth – increases the burden on a finite food supply
c. peak oil – finite oil production makes current fossil-fuel driven industrial techniques unsustainable
Peters 10 –  LL.M. expected 2011, University of Arkansas School of Law, Graduate Program in Agricultural and Food Law; J.D. 2010, University of Oregon School of Law (Kathryn, "Creating a Sustainable Urban Agriculture Revolution" J. ENVTL. LAW AND LITIGATION ~Vol. 25, 203, http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/251/peters.pdf)

The U.S. agricultural system … help to ensure food security.

Cuba’s model of urban agriculture is a sustainable alternative

*urban farming is a sustainable model for global adaptation –
a. solves environmental crises – reduced mechanization of food production reduces carbon emissions and introduces crop rotation which solves soil erosion, also offsets warming by increasing breadth of vegetation to absorb CO2
b. solves food security – utilizes urban spaces to reduce its impact on the planet’s carrying capacity allowing more food production
Peters 10 –  LL.M. expected 2011, University of Arkansas School of Law, Graduate Program in Agricultural and Food Law; J.D. 2010, University of Oregon School of Law (Kathryn, "Creating a Sustainable Urban Agriculture Revolution" J. ENVTL. LAW AND LITIGATION ~Vol. 25, 203, http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/251/peters.pdf)

While urban agriculture was …. the environment or society.

The plan solves–

First, the plan spreads organoponic production, revitalizing urban spaces

*exports organoponic production – Cuba urban farming is a decentralized production model which is cost-attractive because of the lack of expensive technology associated with industrial farming which makes private companies incentivized to adopt the model
*plan spills over world-wide – US adoption of technology makes urban farming cheaper and more easily adopted
Shkolnick 12 – J.D. Candidate, Drake University Law School (Jacob, "SIN EMBARGO: n1 THE CUBAN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE UNITED STATES" 17 Drake J. Agric. L. 683, Fall, lexis)

VI. New Opportunities
While investment in Cuban …urban agriculture to flourish.

Second, access to the US export market spreads the Cuban model

*access to the US export model spreads Cuba’s model – gives Cuba a significant price advantage and quickly transforms the US into a foreign exchange corner through market diversity
Kost 04 – agricultural economist, Specialty Crops Branch, Economic Research. Service, US Department of Agriculture (William, "CUBAN AGRICULTURE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE ORGANIC?"
http://www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume14/pdfs/kost.pdf)

In addition to the above European markets, the successful expansion and viability of Cuba’s
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Cuba could be well positioned to meet U.S. certification standards.
For the U.S. organic market, in addition to a lifting of
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organic market will be meeting U.S. requirements for organic certification.
Tapping the U.S. market may create sufficient price incentives for Cuban producers
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domestic consumption in an environment where other production approaches are just not available.

Third, normalizing trade relations gives preferential status to Cuban exports – no risk of a link turn

*no risk of link turns – giving Cuba preferential status means the US can’t outcompete Cuban exports because Cuba’s imports and exports are given preference in agriculture markets making it harder for private markets to outcompete Cuba
Ashby 11 – a Florida-based attorney, is CEO of Federal Regulatory Compliance Services and Counsel with the International law firm SNR Denton. He served at the US Commerce Department, International Trade Administration, as Director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean and acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere (Timothy, States News Service, "HELPING CUBAN REFORMS THROUGH AGRICULTURAL TRADE", 11/22, lexis)

Cuba’s private farmers are an entrepreneurial class with growing disposable income. Cuba buys imported foreign goods, including new automobiles (now also legal), and are eager to sell its agricultural products to the United States. Sadly, Cuban agricultural products are still banned from import into the USA. Cuban private farmers and businessmen think this is ironic considering that the U.S. has exported nearly USD four billion worth of food and agricultural products to Cuba since 2001.
While the U.S. will undoubtedly seek to help stabilize Cuba economically when relations are ultimately normalized, it will be constrained by Washington’s massive budget deficit and significantly reduced foreign aid allocations. Official U.S. policy is to encourage the growth of Cuba’s private sector as a means of developing democratic institutions.
The U.S. government could concretely help the development of Cuba’s private sector
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and would not compete with products traditionally grown in the U.S.
The U.S. has a history of providing development assistance and preferential trade
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, the Andean Trade Preference program and the African Growth and Opportunity program.
The President retains ultimate decision-making authority as to which countries and products are
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or submitting such issues to a mutually agreed forum for arbitration."~2~
While certain products from Cuba would certainly be eligible for GSP status, the mandatory country requirements present additional hurdles for preferential trade treatment for Havana to qualify outside of the current political climate. However, these are not insurmountable. For example, Cuba repeatedly has offered to negotiate the settlement of claims for expropriated U.S. property, and since the demise of the Soviet Union, could not be considered to be dominated by "international communism".
In addition to the GSP, the U.S. also has implemented several regional preferential trade programs for certain Central American and Caribbean countries known collectively as the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). Much like the GSP, the CBI was intended to encourage economic development and export diversification throughout the countries of the Caribbean Basin by providing trade and tariff benefits. However, such benefits were denied to any country deemed to be under the control of communists.
President Clinton signed the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in 2000 to
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this category of countries. Most agricultural products are included in these lists.
AGOA beneficiaries are eligible for substantial trade preferences that, in addition to the preferences provided by the GSP, permit marketable goods produced in AGOA countries to enter the U.S. duty-free. The U.S. government, in seeking to encourage and assist AGOA countries, established four regional trade hubs through which it provides assistance to governments and businesses seeking to export to the U.S. market.
Similar to other preferential trade programs, the U.S. President determines on
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eligible for an AGOA-type of preferential program for its agricultural exports.
Both the U.S. and Cuba were parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the WTO. In 1962, the Cuban government was notified that the GATT would impose economic sanctions pursuant to Article XXI of the GATT, Security Exceptions. The U.S. invoked this article to revoke Cuba’s preferential sugar tariff and access to the U.S. market. As a result, the U.S. denied Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) status to Cuba.
MFN is a guiding principle of the GATT. It requires that member countries not discriminate in the way in which they treat WTO partners. Article I of the GATT states "any advantage, favour, privilege or immunity granted by any contracting party to any product originating in or destined for any other country shall be accorded immediately and unconditionally to the like product originating in or destined for the territories of all other contracting parties.
The U.S. is currently exempt from having to provide the MFN status
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the MFN rate of duty provided in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS).
It follows that the granting of MFN status to Cuba would result in Cuba having the same rights of access to the U.S. market as all other countries. In the event that Cuba requests access to the sugar trade-rate quota (TRQ), the U.S. would be required to comply with this request pursuant to the WTO rule that all countries with a "substantial interest in supplying a product’ be allocated a portion of the TRQ.’"
To date, the WTO has used the "10 share" rule to
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"substantial interest" and thus would be granted access to the TRQ.
At this point, the U.S. would have several options to determine
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to Cuba. It could also increase the overall TRQ for certain products.
As the U.S. has implemented several broad preferential trade programs aimed at increasing economic development throughout the developing world, it seems likely that Cuba could be included in such a program upon the resumption of normal trade relations. The trend seems to be to enter into such bilateral or regional free trade agreements as a means of reducing barriers to trade within the principles of the GATT and WTO.
Cuba would also presumably be eligible for membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which would allow preferential access to Cuban agricultural products.
The U.S. historically has been among the world’s foremost proponents of free
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and would not compete with products actually grown in the U.S.

This prevents the collapse of US agriculture

*prevents collapse of US agriculture – current industrial farming methods are terminally unsustainable a paradigm shift is critical to shifting to successful agricultural practices
Peters 10 –  LL.M. expected 2011, University of Arkansas School of Law, Graduate Program in Agricultural and Food Law; J.D. 2010, University of Oregon School of Law (Kathryn, "Creating a Sustainable Urban Agriculture Revolution" J. ENVTL. LAW AND LITIGATION ~Vol. 25, 203, http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/251/peters.pdf)

An adequate food supply is essential for  the survival of the human race. Historically
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of the population currently lacks access to land on which to grow food.
In the face of environmental, economic, and social equity challenges, it is
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urban areas with access to an adequate supply of fresh, nutritious food.

Three impacts–

First, industrial agriculture crushes the environment and bio-diversity, threatening extinction

*industrial agricultural practices cause extinction – depletes scarce resources, overexploits agricultural areas and spurs resource wars – polluting fertilizer causes soil erosion collapsing the environment – makes extinction inevitable
Ehrlich 26 Ehrlich 13 – Professor of Biology 26 Senior Research Scientist in Biology @ Stanford University (Paul R. Ehrlich (President of the Center for Conservation Biology @ Stanford University) 26 Anne H. Ehrlich, "Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?," Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, Proc. R. Soc. B 2013 280, published online 9 January 2013)HA

Virtually every past civilization has eventually undergone collapse, a loss of socio-political
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overexploitation of the environment was one proximate or an ultimate cause ~3~.
But today, for the first time, humanity’s global civilization—the worldwide,
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it from generating a global collapse is perhaps the foremost challenge confronting humanity.
The human predicament is driven by overpopulation, overconsumption of natural resources and the use
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or that gross domestic product can be disengaged from resource use ~26~
2. Do current trends portend a collapse?
What is the likelihood of this set of interconnected predicaments ~27~ leading to
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of the vast majority of people would disappear. pg. 1-2 

1ac – multilateralism

CONTENTION 2 IS MULTILATERALISM

Anti-americanism and unilateral military policies are decimating US legitimacy, threating the American international system- that causes excess interventions and great power wars

*unilateralism fails –
a. power dilution – arms trade has fallen to NGOs, international organizations are too cumbersome and beaten by small regional alliances, GONGOs are resulting in proxy soft-power competition
b. small state backlash – international norms created by unipolarity cause diffusion of power to smaller states with vetoes that they can use to control us in international institutions
c. economic multipolarity – strong economic globalization means other countries have enough influence to American goals
*unilateralism causes great power wars via aggressive intervention – military power creates the temptation of policymakers to use it—hegemons are inevitably more aggressive and that leads to adventurism – policymakers have incentives to engage in threat construction and greatly exaggerate threats that allow intervention – Iraq proves
Kupchan 12 – Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford, Associate Professor of International Relations @gtown, Senior Fellow and Director of Europe Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (Charles Kupchan, "Sorry, Mitt: It Won’t Be an American Century", FEBRUARY 6, 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/06/it_won_t_be_an_american_century?page=0,2)

In an election season, such talk rolls easily off the tongue. But Romney’s
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secure and prosperous even as economic and military strength spreads to new quarters.
President Barack Obama is on the correct path. Leaving Iraq and overseeing a paced
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the president’s pledge to focus on "nation-building here at home."
Romney has already denigrated Obama’s pragmatism, charging that "our president thinks America is
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speaks directly to an electorate yearning for more equity and prosperity at home.
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 46 percent of Americans want the
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But Obama’s commitment to nation-building at home will play even better.
Even if Romney’s rhetoric were to get more domestic traction, it would still bear no resemblance to the new global landscape that is fast emerging. The United States is indeed an exceptional nation — in its prized geographic location, commitment to freedom and democracy, and brand of international leadership. But the country’s exceptionalism should not be used as an excuse to hide from global realities.
China’s GDP will catch up with America’s over the course of the next decade.
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years ahead. Nonetheless, a more level global playing field is inevitable.
To be sure, America’s military superiority will remain second to none for decades to
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be at least as important as raw power in ensuring the country’s security.
To acknowledge the need for the United States to adjust to prospective shifts in the global distribution of power is not, as Duke University professor Bruce Jentleson recently pointed out in Democracy, to be a declinist or a pessimist. It is to be a realist. And safely guiding the United States through this coming transition requires seeing the world as it is rather than retreating toward the illusory comfort of denial.
Adjusting to the rise of the rest requires, for starters, making more room at the table for newcomers. That process is already well under way. The G-20 has supplanted the G-8, widening the circle for global consultations. In the aftermath of reforms adopted in 2010, developing countries now have enhanced weight at the World Bank and IMF. The enlargement of the U.N. Security Council, though currently bogged down in wrangling, is also in the offing.
But making international institutions more representative is the easy part. More challenging will be managing the ideological diversity that will accompany the coming realignment in global power. Precisely because the United States is an exceptional nation, its version of liberal democracy may well prove to be the exception, not the rule.
In China, Russia, and the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf, state-
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no excuse for his silence on how he plans to manage these complexities.
Promoting international stability will grow more demanding as rising powers bring to the table their
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as stakeholders in that order, not merely as objects of American power.
Shepherding the transition to this more pluralistic world is arguably the defining challenge facing U.S. statecraft in the years ahead. Romney appears ready to pave over this challenge by denying that such change is afoot and attempting to portray Obama’s policies as "an eloquently justified surrender of world leadership."
Obama should welcome this debate and refuse to let his opponents hide behind the veil
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do much more for the United States than congratulatory talk of American primacy.
A smarter, more selective, and less costly U.S. role in
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but on guiding a more diverse and unwieldy globe to consensus and cooperation.

The impact is global conflict escalation

Brooks, et al, 13 ~Don’t Come Home, America: The Case
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Volume 37, Number 3, Winter 2012, p. Project Muse~

¶ Assessing the Security Benefits of Deep Engagement¶ Even if deep engagement’s costs are
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disengaged—even as it pushes cooperation toward U.S. preferences.

Multilateralism is a credible alternative- it promotes band-wagoning and international coalitions among US allies, strengthening the US-led system and reviving legitimacy

*only multilateralism solves global problems, unilateralism fails for several reasons –
a. technology – the internet and instant communications makes small states and non-state actors immune to hard power – even rogue states can shape public opinion against America through state-run news agencies
b. threats – terrorism, disease and the private arms trade cannot be addressed via unilateralism – they are global problems that demand local solutions which only multilateralism resolves
c. facilitates state-sponsored backlash – creates bloated international institutions that delay successful solutions – the failures of Kyoto, Copenhagen and every global trade treaty for the past 20 years prove that hard power doesn’t result in global cooperation – multilateralism results in joint-info sharing that solves
Ikenberry and Kupchan 04 – (John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan, "Liberal Realism: The Foundations of a Democratic Foreign Policy," National Interest (Fall 2004))

It is misguided, however, to assume that America’s preponderant power, when combined
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deployed in the exclusive pursuit of national self-interest does the opposite.
The Bush Administration’s grand strategy rests on a second geopolitical misconception: that U.
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power, as they rise, array their strength against the United States.
Finally, the Bush Administration has overestimated the advantages of military superiority and mistaken brute
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. policy do not have the military wherewithal to stand in America’s way.
Although it is correct that other countries are not forming alliances against the United States
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its current course, it will enjoy military supremacy, but little else.
FROM THE perspective of liberal realism, management of the global balance of power would
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the costs of unilateral action usually far exceed the costs of seeking consensus.
Second, liberal realism entails moving with—rather than against—the secular diffusion
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rise, but the ends to which it will use its growing strength.
Third, liberal realism rests on a multidimensional understanding of power, sensitive to the
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and to make disaffected allies again feel like stakeholders in the international system.

Specifically, it solves inevitable Asian transition wars which go nuclear

*great power war goes nuclear, mutually assured destruction can’t check – best power transition experts conclude based off decades of demographic and economic research that  inevitable transition wars from collapse of unilateralism causes retrenchment wars spurring lash-out drawing in China and India – only multilateralism solves by persuading Chinese leaders to maintain the status quo
Kugler 06 – Professor of World Politics at Claremont Graduate University (Jacek, "The Asian Ascent: Opportunity for Peace or Precondition for War?", http://sobek.colorado.edu/~~lewiso/Kugler20-20The20Asian20Ascent.pdf)//NG

Given the fundamental importance of demographic and economic forces in establishing the roster of states
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of the enormous costs that reasonably would be anticipated from a nuclear war.

The plan solves–

First, repeal would represent a commitment to multilateralism for the international community, and also bolster human rights credibility that motivates other countries to rally behind the United States

*plan spreads multilateralism – only the removal of the embargo carries the symbolic weight of revoking previous unilateral efforts to backlash against other countries in votes during conferences in the UN
*overwhelms alternative causes – removing the embargo signifies an endorsement of international law that overwhelms human rights violations in Guantanamo and Iraq – prefer comparative evidence
Burgsdorff 09 – Ph. D in Political Science from Freiburg University, EU Fellow at the University of Miami (Sven Kühn von, "Problems and Opportunities for the Incoming Obama Administration", http://aei.pitt.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/11047/1/vonBurgsdorfUSvsCubalong09edi.pdf)//NG

In addition, the US needs to improve its international human rights reputation which was  
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it would be interpreted by the international community as steps  towards effective multilateralism.

That bolsters legitimacy of U.S. hegemony, which locks in institutional norms to bring rising powers into the system safely

Fujimoto 12 (Kevin Fujimoto 12, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, January 11, 2012, "Preserving U.S. National Security Interests Through a Liberal World Construct," online: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/Preserving-US-National-Security-Interests-Liberal-World-Construct/2012/1/11)
The emergence of peer competitors, not terrorism, presents the greatest long-term
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protect its interests later when we are no longer the world’s only superpower.

Second, the plan fosters a credible conflict resolution model which prevents conflict – status quo policies risk disengagement

*plan fosters a credible conflict resolution model – increases diplomatic negotiations with Cuba which even if they fail garner international support for America in multilateral negotiations – also increase Cuban relations which spreads democratic efforts worldwide giving the US a hedge in multilateral institutions
*solves Kashmir conflict – plan fosters international momentum and credibility to leverage international dialogue in resolving human rights abuses, military buildup and Indo-Pakistan tensions in the region – solves the root cause of the problem
*solves Middle East conflict – increased credibility allows Obama to leverage his international reputation with rogue nations like Iran to control fissile material and international leverage allows us to de-escalate Middle East tensions
Dickerson 10 – Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, paper submitted in fulfillment of a Master of Strategic Studies Degree at the US Army War College (Sergio M, "UNITED STATES SECURITY STRATEGY TOWARDS CUBA," 1/14/10, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a518053.pdf)  NG

At the international political level, President Obama sees resuming relations with Cuba as a
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of a "new beginning" in U.S.-Cuba relations.
While dismissing Cuba’s immediate security threat to the U.S., we cannot ignore
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back to our punitive approaches to U.S. diplomacy towards Cuba.
On the other hand, consider that foreign diplomacy achieves a breakthrough under Raul’s Cuba
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continue the embargo is reached, international support would be easier to garner.
Almost 21 years since the wall fell in Berlin, it is time to chip away at the diplomatic wall that still remains between U.S. and Cuba. This paper will further define our interests in Cuba and why President Obama should continue his quest for renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba. It will discuss potential risks associated with retaining the current 50-year diplomatic policy and give some broad suggestions regarding a new U.S. – Cuba foreign policy.
Policy and National Interest
Present U.S. policy towards Cuba is economic isolation imposed via embargo to
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Cuba policy, past opportunities and ultimate failure over the past 50 years.
From 1959 to1964, beginning with President Eisenhower but shaped primarily by the Kennedy Administration
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by 1974, 45 of Cuba’s exports came from western governments.7
The period 1965-1972, although officially endorsing the previous administration’s tough stance,
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" in 1980 intensified this opposition and quickly derailed Carter’s initiatives in Congress.
As President Reagan took office in 1980, U.S. – Cuba relations
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Administrations made no significant concessions to Cuba and status quo between countries remained.
The last meaningful opportunity for change occurred after the fall of the Berlin Wall and
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allow third country U.S. companies from trading with Cuba.15
By the time President Clinton came to office, momentum had already shifted in Cuba’s
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tighten the noose failed terribly and only succeeded in further alienating both governments.
The second Bush Administration did little to engage Cuba and after September 11, 2001, was completely engrossed in the War on Terror. U.S. policy towards Cuba has changed little in 50 years. Although the embargo continues to fail despite our best efforts to tighten it, our policy has remained steadfast and the U.S. is no closer to normalizing relations with Cuba.
A History of Anger and Distrust
After 50 years, deep-seated distrust and anger exists between the U.
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conditions for diplomatic success in future U.S. – Cuba relations.
Experts argue over who’s started the dispute between nations: was it the Cuban Agrarian
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encourage the long-term changes U.S. wants in Cuba.
The embargo itself remains a perpetual albatross that continues to undermine any real diplomatic progress
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.S. had succeeded in isolating Cuba from its western traders.20
Tightening the noose placed extraordinary economic pressure on Cuba considering U.S. multilateral
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, and Asian countries participated in Cuba’s largest ever annual trade fair."26
Castro’s interest in improving U.S. - Cuba relations was perhaps the greatest
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now largely ineffective bilateral embargo served only to increase animosity between both countries.
It is difficult to quantify, but essential to note, that U.S
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U.S. national interests and not the legacy of Fidel Castro.
Another important pitfall is to exploit democracy as a precondition for diplomacy and economic engagement
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28 The recommendation then focuses largely on steps to pursue a democratic Cuba.
To separate security and stability from democratic pursuits in Cuba could benefit both causes.
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generation to open dialogue with Cuba without the democratic preconditions tied to negotiations.
As we pursue diplomatic relations with Cuba we should not expect full disclosure, immediate
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is needed until Cuba has the confidence to commit to further diplomatic relations.
Current U.S.-Cuba Policy Analysis
Understanding the deep-seated animosity and distrust that continues to fuel U.S. - Cuba tensions will aid us in properly analyzing the feasibility, acceptability and suitability (FAS) of current and future U.S. policy with Cuba. Identifying FAS applications to diplomacy, information, military, economic, finance, intelligence and law enforcement (DIME-FIL) will highlight weaknesses in current U.S. – Cuba relations that can be modified for future improvement.
The logical question with regards to current U.S. – Cuba policy is
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. to pursue the current course there is no evidence it will succeed.
How acceptable is it to U.S. foreign policy? There are three
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. acceptability is necessary to achieve U.S. ends in Cuba.
Several embargo refinements over the years like the Libertad Act have further tightened restrictions on
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, our efforts to impose embargo restrictions are unacceptable tradeoffs for homeland security.
In the final analysis, U.S. – Cuba policy is not sustainable
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foregone diplomatic engagement and chosen coercive economic power as our only political tool.
Does Cuba Pose A Security Threat to the U.S.?
Let’s begin by asking this question: can we afford to escort commerce through Caribbean
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are definite advantages to having healthy regional partnerships to deal with regional problems.
While economic pressure has failed to bring about government change, it could trigger a
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not exist for real change in U.S. – Cuba relations.
Proposed U.S.-Cuba Policy Analysis
If today marks President Obama’s "new strategy" towards Cuba we must begin with U.S. National interests in the broader Latin American context. Over the past 50 years our approach has been germane to Cuba and not the larger Latin American construct. In so doing we have isolated Cuba from Latin America for coercive reasons yes, but also for the very democratic principles we hoped Cuba would follow.
The State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (covers Canada and Cuba) has
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conditions and exposing them to the democratic enticements we hope they will emulate.
Achieving Congressional approval will be difficult although not impossible in the present economic recession.
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these to the American public before the media or his opposition defines these.
We’ve established that coercive means have failed to achieve democracy and economic stability in Cuba
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U.S. shepherding, lead them to a more representative government.
If we accept that reestablishing relations with Cuba is the first real step to a
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to allow time to reap success or mitigate failure before the next elections.
The U.S. cannot afford to miss another opportunity to normalize relations with Cuba. A Cuba without Fidel is an opportunity – whether it is Raul or his replacement in 2013. The U.S. must lay the foundation today for renewed U.S. Cuba relations. Delaying could also signal the contrary to Raul Castro suspiciously awaiting the true purpose of recent U.S. concessions.
While a long term goal may be to influence change in government, it cannot
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the restoration of trust that must occur before complete reciprocation can be expected.
Conclusion
Today, 20 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall – it’s
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Cuba. Under these conditions, diplomacy has a better chance to flourish.
If the Cuban model succeeds President Obama will be seen as a true leader for
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decline in the greater global order bringing true peace for years to come.

That conflict model bolsters Obama’s credibility and convinces other countries to negotiate with the United States

Hinderdael, 11– M.A. candidate at SAIS Bologna Center (Klaas, "Breaking the Logjam: Obama’s Cuba Policy and a Guideline for Improved Leadership", http://bcjournal.org/volume-14/breaking-the-logjam.html?printerFriendly=true)//NG

Conclusion
The two countries’ histories have long been intertwined, particularly after the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 gave rise to the American belief that it would become the hemisphere’s protector. Until the immediate aftermath of Fidel Castro’s revolution, Cuba provided a testing ground for the promotion of American ideals, social beliefs, and foreign policies.
In the context of Raúl shifting course in Cuba, the Obama administration has the
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willing to make concessions knowing that the United States will return in kind.
The United States should not wait for extensive democratization before further engaging Cuba, however. One legacy of the Cold War is that Communism has succeeded only where it grew out of its own, often nationalistic, revolutions. As it has with China and Vietnam, the United States should look closely at the high payoffs stemming from engagement. By improving relations, America can enhance its own influence on the island’s political structure and human rights policies.
At home, with the trade deficit and national debt rising, the economic costs
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ready for a shift in the country’s approach to its neighboring island.52
At this particular moment in the history of US-Cuban relations, there is tremendous promise for a breakthrough in relations. In a post-Cold War world, Cuba no longer presents a security threat to the united States, but instead provides it with economic potential. American leaders cannot forget the fact that an economic embargo, combined with diplomatic isolation, has failed to bring democracy to Cuba for over 50 years.
American policymakers should see Cuba as an opportunity to reap the political, economic, and strategic rewards of shifting its own policies toward engagement. By ending the economic embargo and normalizing diplomatic relations with the island, President Obama would indicate that he is truly willing to extend his hand once America’s traditional adversaries unclench their fists.

Third, the plan sends a clear signal of cooperation to Latin America, creating new partnerships and bolstering relations

*plan sends a signal of Latin American cooperation to reinvigorate the OAS – even though Cuba’s suspension was revoked in 2009, there exists a disconnect between their reenlistment and the continuation of the embargo – corrupts the OAS agenda by delegitimizing US credibility
*solves Latin American relations – choice statements from leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance prove Cuba is the nexus point of increased relations which solves multilateralism by enlisting support of developing countries who bandwagon with Latin America
White 13 – Senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and former U.S. ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador (Robert, "After Chávez, a Chance to Rethink Relations With Cuba", New York Times, 3/7/13, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/opinion/after-chavez-hope-for-good-neighbors-in-latin-america.html?pagewanted=all)//TL

FOR most of our history, the United States assumed that its security was inextricably linked to a partnership with Latin America. This legacy dates from the Monroe Doctrine, articulated in 1823, through the Rio pact, the postwar treaty that pledged the United States to come to the defense of its allies in Central and South America.
Yet for a half-century, our policies toward our southern neighbors have alternated between intervention and neglect, inappropriate meddling and missed opportunities. The death this week of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela — who along with Fidel Castro of Cuba was perhaps the most vociferous critic of the United States among the political leaders of the Western Hemisphere in recent decades — offers an opportunity to restore bonds with potential allies who share the American goal of prosperity.
Throughout his career, the autocratic Mr. Chávez used our embargo as a wedge with which to antagonize the United States and alienate its supporters. His fuel helped prop up the rule of Mr. Castro and his brother Raúl, Cuba’s current president. The embargo no longer serves any useful purpose (if it ever did at all); President Obama should end it, though it would mean overcoming powerful opposition from Cuban-American lawmakers in Congress.
An end to the Cuba embargo would send a powerful signal to all of Latin America that the United States wants a new, warmer relationship with democratic forces seeking social change throughout the Americas.
I joined the State Department as a Foreign Service officer in the 1950s and chose
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region since the end of Spanish and Portuguese rule in the 19th century.
Kennedy had a charisma of his own, and it captured the imaginations of leaders
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D. Roosevelt and transformed the whole concept of inter-American relations.
Tragically, after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the ideal of the Alliance for Progress crumbled and "la noche mas larga" — "the longest night" — began for the proponents of Latin American democracy. Military regimes flourished, democratic governments withered, moderate political and civil leaders were labeled Communists, rights of free speech and assembly were curtailed and human dignity crushed, largely because the United States abandoned all standards save that of anti-Communism.
During my Foreign Service career, I did what I could to oppose policies that supported dictators and closed off democratic alternatives. In 1981, as the ambassador to El Salvador, I refused a demand by the secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig Jr., that I use official channels to cover up the Salvadoran military’s responsibility for the murders of four American churchwomen. I was fired and forced out of the Foreign Service.
The Reagan administration, under the illusion that Cuba was the power driving the Salvadoran revolution, turned its policy over to the Pentagon and C.I.A., with predictable results. During the 1980s the United States helped expand the Salvadoran military, which was dominated by uniformed assassins. We armed them, trained them and covered up their crimes.
After our counterrevolutionary efforts failed to end the Salvadoran conflict, the Defense Department asked
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and at a cost disproportionate to any conventional conception of the national interest."
Over the subsequent quarter-century, a series of profound political, social and
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States — which excludes the United States and Canada — as an alternative.
At a regional meeting that included Cuba and excluded the United States, Mr. Chávez said that "the most positive thing for the independence of our continent is that we meet alone without the hegemony of empire."
Mr. Chávez was masterful at manipulating America’s antagonism toward Fidel Castro as a rhetorical stick with which to attack the United States as an imperialist aggressor, an enemy of progressive change, interested mainly in treating Latin America as a vassal continent, a source of cheap commodities and labor.
Like its predecessors, the Obama administration has given few signs that it has grasped the magnitude of these changes or cares about their consequences. After President Obama took office in 2009, Latin America’s leading statesman at the time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, then the president of Brazil, urged Mr. Obama to normalize relations with Cuba.
Lula, as he is universally known, correctly identified our Cuba policy as the chief stumbling block to renewed ties with Latin America, as it had been since the very early years of the Castro regime.
After the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Washington set out to accomplish by stealth and economic strangulation what it had failed to do by frontal attack. But the clumsy mix of covert action and porous boycott succeeded primarily in bringing shame on the United States and turning Mr. Castro into a folk hero.
And even now, despite the relaxing of travel restrictions and Raúl Castro’s announcement that
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Committee, but his power has been weakened by a continuing ethics controversy.)
Are there any other examples in the history of diplomacy where the leaders of a small, weak nation can prevent a great power from acting in its own best interest merely by staying alive?
The re-election of President Obama, and the death of Mr. Chávez
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president is prepared to show some flexibility on Cuba and asks your help.
Such a simple request could transform the Cuban issue from a bilateral problem into a multilateral challenge. It would then be up to Latin Americans to devise a policy that would help Cuba achieve a sufficient measure of democratic change to justify its reintegration into a hemisphere composed entirely of elected governments.
If, however, our present policy paralysis continues, we will soon see the emergence of two rival camps, the United States versus Latin America. While Washington would continue to enjoy friendly relations with individual countries like Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, the vision of Roosevelt and Kennedy of a hemisphere of partners cooperating in matters of common concern would be reduced to a historical footnote.

Increased regional standing bolsters influence in international institutions through the creation of voting blocs, allowing the US to lead multilateral forums

*plan boosts influence in international institutions – re-integrates Latin American as a regional ally to counterbalance emerging economic powers and improves US diplomacy with their support
*the internal link is perception based – the perception of America lacking regional allies encourages increasing economic powers to diametrically oppose the US in multilateral institutions to crush our agenda
Sabatini and Berger 12 – Christopher Sabatini is editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and senior director of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas. Ryan Berger is a policy associate at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas(Christopher/Ryan, "Why the U.S. can’t afford to ignore Latin America" 6/13/12, CNN/Global Public Square, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/13/why-the-u-s-cant-afford-to-ignore-latin-america/)//AD

 Speaking in Santiago, Chile, in March of last year, President Obama
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S. "backyard" that is outside broader, global strategic concerns.

That leads to greater power sharing and international cooperation, resolving conflict

*multilateralism solves global problems –
a. fosters great power sharing – increased multilateral dialogue devises similar analytics lenses that make policies more readily adopted on a large scale  
b. increases international cooperation – lends legitimacy to policies by virtue of debate and increases efficient implementation of joint programs because actors feel invested in solutions – creates a self-reinforcing dynamic which creates new focal points for strategic interaction
Pouliot 11 — Professor of Political Science at McGill University (Vincent Pouliot, "Multilateralism as an End in Itself," International Studies Perspectives (2011) 12, 18–26)NG

Because it rests on open, nondiscriminatory debate, and the routine exchange of viewpoints
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that further strengthen the impetus for multilateral dialog. Pg. 21-23 

1ac – solvency

CONTENTION 3 IS SOLVENCY

Normal Trade Relations is vital – no trade occurs without it

*normal trade relations are critical – even if the US were to lift the entire embargo, that doesn’t initiate trade because actual trade depends on the provision of nondiscriminatory treatment toward trading partners – otherwise sustainable trade is impossible
French 09 – editor of and a frequent contributor to The Havana Note, has led more than two dozen research trips to Cuba (Anya, "Options for Engagement A Resource Guide for Reforming U.S. Policy toward Cuba" http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Cuba/USPolicy/options-for-engagement.pdf)

the path to "normal" trade relations
If the United States were to lift its trade embargo against Cuba, this would
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most important of which is the provision of Normal Trade Relations (NTR).
NTR is a technical term which refers to the provision of nondiscriminatory treatment toward trading partners. Cuba and North Korea are the only two countries to which the United States continues to deny "normal trade relations." All other countries either have permanent normal trade relations or temporary, renewable normal trade relations with the United States.161
Assuming that the Cuba-specific trade sanctions contained in the Cuban Assets Control Regulations
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desire of such citizen to emigrate to the country of his choice."162
Thus, Cuba’s restrictions on its citizens’ emigration rights pose an obstacle to normalization of bilateral trade. Only once the requirements set forth by the Jackson-Vanik amendment have been met, (and absent any other Cuba-specific sanctions, such as the Export Administration Act controls on countries found to be supporting international terrorism), could the United States begin negotiations of a bilateral commercial agreement with Cuba.
To begin to extend normal trade relations to Cuba, the United States would need
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years, as both countries would need to adopt statutory and regulatory changes. 

The unconditional offer of normal trade relations boosts US-Cuban relations and fosters a stable transition

*unconditional offer of the plan is critical – adding a condition to the offer makes the US seem like a coercive entity that is attempting to forcefully extract concessions from Cuba which exacerbates the imperialist symbol of the embargo
*plan fosters a stable Cuban democratic transition – normalization of trade relations gives the US the opportunity to provide foreign economic aid to Cuba in the case of Cuban economic decline – allows a stable transition to a democratic state
Koenig 10 – US Army Colonel, paper submitted for a Masters in Strategic Studies at the US Army War College (Lance, "Time for a New Cuba Policy" http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA518130)

The option with the greatest possibility of success and reward for the United States is to support the Cuban people, but not the Cuban government. The United States should take the following actions unilaterally:
• Lift completely the economic embargo. Establish banking and financial relationships to facilitate the trading of goods and services between the two countries.
• Lift completely the travel ban to allow not only Cuban-Americans with relatives but also all other Americans to travel to Cuba. This interaction of Americans with Cubans will help raise the awareness of Cubans about their northern neighbor.
• Next, the United States should engage the Cuban government to develop a bilateral trade agreement. The goal of this initiative would be to achieve normal trade relations between the two countries.
This leaves the issue of compensation for United States companies and individuals whose property was
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as the "Cinco Heroes" and their plight is well known.37
So what leverage do we have now that we have unilaterally given the Cuban government
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form of government is required before entering into negotiations for the Guantanamo base.
Once Cuba makes changes towards a representative form of government the United States can start
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organization’s values."39 These values include promoting democracy and defending human rights.
The window of opportunity is open now for this type of change. The Obama
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the result of communism, but from the interaction with the capitalist world.
There is a sound reason for unilaterally lifting the trade and travel embargoes without first
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the second and third order effects and their ability to control the outcome.
One of the first problems for the Cuban government after the removal of the embargo
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the Cuban economy sputters and the government realizes they don’t have a scapegoat.
Conclusion
The efforts expended by the United States to keep the embargo effective, the loss
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with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances United States interests.42
The United States cannot afford to miss out on the window of opportunity to affect
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guides her onto a path that will benefit the nations of the Americas. 

Cuban economic reforms are inevitable – however, the AFF safeguards against potential economic disaters through the transition

Ashby 13 – Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, he served in the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration as Director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean and acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Western Hemisphere(Timothy, "Preserving Stability in Cuba After Normalizing Relations with the United States – The Importance of Trading with State-Owned Enterprises" 3/29/13, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, http://www.coha.org/preserving-stability-in-cuba-timothy-ashby/)//AD

Cuba under Raúl Castro has entered a new period of economic, social, and
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for tourists, and freedom being granted for most Cubans to travel abroad.
Stating that it was time for the "gradual transfer" of "key roles to new generations," President Raúl Castro announced that he will retire by 2018, and named as his possible successor a man who was not even born at the time of the Cuban Revolution. ~1~
The twilight of the Castro era presents challenges and opportunities for US policy makers. Normalization of relations is inevitable, regardless of timing, yet external and internal factors may accelerate or retard the process.
The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is likely to undermine the already dysfunctional Cuban
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bilateral trade with all Cuban enterprises, both private and state-owned.
The collapse of Cuba’s tottering economy could seismically impact the United States and neighboring countries. It certainly did during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, precipitated by a downturn in the Cuban economy which led to tensions on the island. Over 125,000 Cuban refugees landed in the Miami area, including 31,000 criminals and mental patients. Today, the United States defines its national security interests regarding Cuba as follows:
• Avoid one or more mass migrations;
• Prevent Cuba from becoming another porous border that allows continuous large-scale migration to the hemisphere;
• Prevent Cuba from becoming a major source or transshipment point for the illegal drug trade;
• Avoid Cuba becoming a state with ungoverned spaces that could provide a platform for terrorists and others wishing to harm the United States. ~2~
All of these national security threats are directly related to economic and social conditions within Cuba.
US policy specifically supports "a market-oriented economic system" ~3~
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economic growth. SOEs employ 72 percent of Cuban workers. ~5~
A rational commercial rapprochement towards Cuba would therefore require a change in current laws and in the system of regulations prohibiting the importation of Cuban goods and products. Normalized bilateral trade will benefit the Cuban people by helping to provide economic stability and fostering the growth of a middle class – both of which are essential for the foundation of democratic institutions. Two-way trade must include both Cuba’s private sector as well as SOEs.

The plan changes elite calculus – it removes the fear of regime change and creates buy in for economic and political reform

Lopez-Levy 11 – PhD candidate at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, coauthor of "Raul Castro and the New Cuba" (Arturo, New America Foundation, May 2011, http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/naf_all_cuba_reform_final.pdf)//EK

Diplomacy, not sanctions, must be the primary tool for resolving differences with Havana
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civil society. The United States should support such a course in Cuba.

Lifting the embargo won’t speed reform – instability is more likely without the plan

Whiting 13 – (Ashley, LEEHG Institute for Foreign Policy, Policy Recommendation to Lift the Cuban Embargo, 1/30/13,  
http://www.leehg.org/?p=467)

The United States’ embargo against Cuba has failed to fulfill its purpose even half a
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embargo and take a new approach in influencing the domestic politics of Cuba.

Embargo prevents meaningful econ reform

CSG 13 – (Cuba Study Group, Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S. Policy Toward Cuba February 2013, http://www.cubastudygroup.org/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=45d8f827-174c-4d43-aa2f-ef7794831032)

The primary consequences of Helms-Burton and related statutory provisions have been to isolate
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that the United States may finally develop a coherent policy toward the Island.

Tournament: harvard round robin | Round: 2 | Opponent: Stratford OS | Judge: Ben Crossan

1ac

1ac – securitized sanctions

Welcome to the United States – where cultures that refuse to accept our imperial mindset become threats and we respond by placing economic sanctions upon them – our culture bribes us to accept Cuba as an inferior yet threatening nation – this prevents us from seeking solutions to true oppression and establishes a colonial mindset for Latin America at large

Schoultz 10 – Professor of Political Science at UNC Chapel Hill (Lars, "Benevolent Domination: The Ideology of US Policy Towards Cuba", NG)

The United States and Cuba have not had normal diplomatic relations since January 3,
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. Our euphemism for these people and their societies is ’’underdeveloped.’’1
This ideology is not a facade masking sel?sh interests and, in particular, a
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revert to the aboriginal state in which Alvarado the Spaniard found it.’’2
The best way to begin—but only begin—to explain U.S
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States came to perceive Cuba’s revolutionary government as a threat to its interests.
For three of the past ?ve decades, roughly from 1960 to 1990, the
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keep potential adversaries as far away as possible, and Cuba is close.
’’We will bury you,’’ Nikita Khrushchev boasted in 1956, just as
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an unacceptable challenge to the primordial U.S. interest in security.
The Cuban Revolution also attacked substantial economic interests. The U.S. government
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it—a full-court press by U.S. diplomats.
But most investors of Robert Kleberg’s generation wrote off their losses decades ago, and
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Havana’s harbor. It was the ?rst signi?cant trade with Cuba since 1963.
Cubans apparently liked what they bought, and soon the invisible hand of supply and
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business leaders hoping to convince Cubans to use their port for food shipments.
These visits were but a prelude to the main event in 2003: a privately
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major market for U.S. corn, wheat and soybeans.’’4
So here we are, at a time when national security of?cials no longer have
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lose two; Florida has twenty-seven and will probably gain two).
At ?rst, Cuban immigrants were politically impotent, but soon they began to take
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-fashioned way, with campaign contri- butions and bloc voting.6
And CANF did this at a propitious moment: it had spent the 1980s honing
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is that we look to the rest of the world like idiots.’’8
Then came Elián González, the ?ve-year-old boy found clinging to
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W. Bush the presidency with a ?ve-vote electoral college margin.
Since then, the question has been: When will Cuban Americans begin to vote
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imme- diately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island.’’
When implemented in 2009, this relaxation of the embargo’s travel and remittance provisions more
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hijacked boat in the Straits of Florida and returned the hijackers to Cuba.
Enough is enough, wrote ninety-eight prominent Cuban Americans, taking out an
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-line Cuban American base and probably contributed to his win in Florida.
Both George Bush and Barack Obama understood the importance of Flor- ida’s Cuban Americans
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up on family visits and remit- tances. And he won Florida.
So where is U.S. policy heading? Given the torpor that has
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, the pollsters will tell everyone it is safe to end the estrangement.
The truly interesting question is what might come after that. No one knows,
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exactly what we should: Go down and lift those people up.’’10
We should not make too much of this off-the-cuff response,
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word and I’ll turn that f—— island into a parking lot.’’11
What would seem puzzling to a visitor from another planet is why, when the
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major issue for Kennedy, who had much else on his mind.’’12
And this combination of awesome power and globe-girding responsibili- ties helps explain
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that would cost in the currency that might matter most: world opinion.
So what was plan B? First, there were a few years of what
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we ought to do to pinch their nuts more than we’re doing.’’14
Nut pinching—an embargo—has been U.S. policy ever since
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’’we might just as well get used to the idea.’’16
But tugging U.S. policy toward greater involvement is domestic politics— Cuban
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’’ Like its predecessor, the Obama administration is committed to uplifting Cuba.
Like the two post–Cold War presidents sandwiched between them—Bill Clinton and
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- tion, the greater energy, the purer morality of America.’’19
Today’s uplifting effort, which focuses on promoting democracy, carries on a tradition established
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a day or of a year, but of a longer period.’’20
Wood’s letter arrived in Washington at a moment when McKinley’s thoughts were on domestic politics—reelection—and when the rival Demo- crats were already making political capital out of his administration’s inability to pacify the Philippines, another part of the spoils seized from Spain. Seeking to balance that quagmire with progress in Cuba, the president ordered Wood to draw up the ?rst U.S. plan for Cuba’s democracy.
Wood did so. It began with the disenfranchisement of that part of the Cuban
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San Domingo, will be regarded as an event of ?rst importance.’’21
But then, when given their opportunity to vote—for Cuba’s ?rst constitu-
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change of government, unless it be annexation to the United States.’’22
But the Republicans had made an unambiguous campaign commitment to Cuban independence, and so
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. Estrada Palma’s election ended Washington’s ?rst effort to promote democracy in Cuba.
A second effort began four years later, in 1906, when a substantial number
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am seeking the very minimum of interference necessary to make them good.’’
Forced to the defensive after retaking a country only recently granted its independence, Roosevelt’s
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you need here among the Cubans is a desire to make money.’’25
As did Leonard Wood before him, Taft understood that the uplifting would not be
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by administering their Gov- ernment for two years or twenty years.’’27
As an alternative to a time-consuming attempt to de-Hispanicize Cuban culture
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elec- tion, and in early 1909, he sailed for home.
Although U.S. forces returned in 1912 to quash a complex Afro-
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sugar estates in central Cuba, where they stayed for ?ve years.28
It was during this partial occupation that the Wilson administration pres- sured President Mario
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recommendations which the President has instructed General Crowder to convey to him.’’29
Two days later, Crowder sailed into Havana’s harbor aboard a battleship, the USS
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. This is absolutely one of the ?nest things in human history.’’31 

Problematizing the way we formulate policy in academic debate is critical to challenge the current ideology and change political thought about Latin America

Bertucci 13 – (Mariano, Political Science and International Relations Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California, "Latin America Has Moved On: U.S. Scholarship Hasn’t", Americas Quarterly, Vol. 7 No. 2, Spring)

The bias in U.S. research on U.S. foreign policy
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to the shaping of common solutions to the shared problems in the hemisphere.

====Economic sanctions are a form of economic terrorism which makes colonialism an ever present fact in the lives of Cubans – the justifications of ending communism are shoddy and excuses for endless intervention and violence====
Lamrani 03 – Doctor of Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University Paris-Sorbonne Paris-IV He is a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Contemporary Iberian worlds (CRIMIC) from the University of Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV , and the Interdisciplinary Group on Hispanic Caribbean and Latin America (GRIAHAL) at the University of Cergy Pontoise. (Salim, U.S. Economic sanctions against Cuba: objectives of an imperialist policy, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/USEconomicSanctions_Cuba.html, chm—DR. H) Note: the date was derived from a chart this fine French fellow had in this article, the last date of which was 2003, and it said "votes until now" or something—charlie  

The economic sanctions imposed on Cuba by the United States are unique in view of
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mainly by violent and bloody conquest of new territories ­ proves this unequivocally.
As far back as the middle of the 19th century, U.S.
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would not be controversial if the society we live in was intellectually free.

These attempts to dominate a target nation is based in a form of power politics that generates violence – it must be rejected

Sjoberg 2k – Associate Professor of Political Science and affiliate faculty in Women’s Studies at the University of Florida, She has previously taught and researched at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Duke University, Boston College, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Brandeis University, and Merrimack College. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Gender Studies from the University of Southern California, and a law degree from Boston College.  Chair of the International Studies Association Committee on the Status of Women (Laura, "Towards a Feminist Theory of Sanctions", http://www.laurasjoberg.com/BA.pdf, chm)

Critical Redefinition of Power in the International Arena The critical redefinition of power that would
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program kept them there, just dangling a carrot just out of reach. 

The embargo upholds an approach to international relations based on hypocrisy and enemy creation – it sacrifices the population on the altar of revolution

Blum 11/8 – Foreign Policy Journal, author, historian, and renowned critic of U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of numerous books, including "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower" (William, 2013, The United Nations Vote on the Cuba Embargo – 22 Years In a Row, chm—DR. H)

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):
Year Votes (Yes-No) No Votes
1992 59-2 US, Israel 1993 88-4 US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994 101-2 US, Israel 1995 117-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996 138-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997 143-3 US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998 157-2 US, Israel
1999 155-2 US, Israel
2000 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001 167-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands 2002 173-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003 179-3 US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004 179-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005 182-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006 183-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007 184-4 US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008 185-3 US, Israel, Palau
2009 187-3 US, Israel, Palau
2010 187-2 US, Israel
2011 186-2 US, Israel
2012 188-3 US, Israel, Palau
2013 188-2 US, Israel
Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.
Speaking before the General Assembly, October 29, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: "The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to 241.126 trillion." He added that the blockade "has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration", some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with 242.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.
However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:
"The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens."~1~
So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest;~2~ that their encampments were violently smashed up; that many of them were physically abused by the police.
Does Mr. Godard ever read a newspaper or the Internet, or watch television? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person?
As to "independent journalism" – what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?
The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba? The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.
How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory
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year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.

It’s try or die – security’s epistemological precepts attempt to render everything knowable and hence predictable – this means that random variation in IR ensures aggression and enemy creation which makes extinction inevitable

Burke 07 – Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations in the University of New South Wales (Anthony, Theory 26 Event, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2007, "Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and Reason," Project MUSE)

This essay develops a theory about the causes of war — and thus aims to
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to state what is and how it must be maintained as it is.
I am thinking of ontology in both its senses: ontology as both a statement
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ontology is the ’politics of truth’18 in its most sweeping and powerful form.
I see such a drive for ontological certainty and completion as particularly problematic for a
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occasion, at limited cost and with limited impact — it permeates being.
This essay describes firstly the ontology of the national security state (by way of
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themselves, making them betray not only commitments but their own substance’. 21
What I am trying to describe in this essay is a complex relation between,
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being) has analytical value, it tends to break down in action.
The epistemology of violence I describe here (strategic science and foreign policy doctrine)
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war is seen as a natural phenomenon, like tomorrow’s sunrise.’ 22
The danger obviously raised here is that these dual ontologies of war link being,
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of politics and war — tragically violent ’choices’ will continue to be made.
The essay concludes by pondering a normative problem that arises out of its analysis:
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more sustainable, peaceful and non-violent global rule of the political.
Friend and Enemy: Violent Ontologies of the Nation-State
In his Politics Among Nations Hans Morgenthau stated that ’the national interest of a peace
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qualitative competition for conventional weapons is a rational instrument of international politics’.28
The conceptual template for such an image of  national security state can be found in
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hence its essential character from its own point of view is its singleness’:
Individuality is awareness of one’s existence as a unit in sharp distinction from others. It manifests itself here in the state as a relation to other states, each of which is autonomous vis-a-vis the others...this negative relation of the state to itself is embodied in the world as the relation of one state to another and as if the negative were something external.30
Schmitt is important both for understanding the way in which such alienation is seen as
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it society is not political and a people cannot be said to exist:
Only the actual participants can correctly recognise, understand and judge the concrete situation and settle the extreme case of conflict...to judge whether the adversary intends to negate his opponent’s way of life and therefore must be repulsed or fought in order to preserve one’s own form of existence.33
Schmitt links this stark ontology to war when he states that the political is only
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enemy distinction’.34 War, in short, is an existential condition:
    the entire life of a human being is a struggle and every human being is symbolically a combatant. The friend, enemy and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy.35
Schmitt claims that his theory is not biased towards war as a choice (’It is by no means as though the political signifies nothing but devastating war and every political deed a military action...it neither favours war nor militarism, neither imperialism nor pacifism’) but it is hard to accept his caveat at face value.36
When such a theory takes the form of a social discourse (which it does
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ontologies of war join into a closed circle of mutual support and justification.
This closed circle of existential and strategic reason generates a number of dangers. Firstly
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Israeli-Arab conflict, are arguably examples of such ontologies in action.
Secondly, the militaristic force of such an ontology is visible, in Schmitt, in the absolute sense of vulnerability whereby a people can judge whether their ’adversary intends to negate his opponent’s way of life’.38 Evoking the kind of thinking that would become controversial in the Bush doctrine, Hegel similarly argues that:
    ...a state may regard its infinity and honour as at stake in each
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addition as a cause of strife the idea of such an injury...39
Identity, even more than physical security or autonomy, is put at stake in
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by conservatives to justify military adventurism and a rejectionist policy towards the Palestinians.
On the reverse side of such ontologies of national insecurity we find pride and hubris, the belief that martial preparedness and action are vital or healthy for the existence of a people. Clausewitz’s thought is thoroughly imbued with this conviction. For example, his definition of war as an act of policy does not refer merely to the policy of cabinets, but expresses the objectives and will of peoples:
    When whole communities go to war — whole peoples, and especially civilized peoples — the reason always lies in some political situation and the occasion is always due to some political object. War, therefore, is an act of policy.42
Such a perspective prefigures Schmitt’s definition of the ’political’ (an earlier translation reads ’war
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merges the existential and rationalistic conceptions of war into a theoretical unity.44
The idea that national identities could be built and redeemed through war derived from the
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time to time to shake them to the very centre by war’.46
The historian Azar Gat points to the similarity of Clausewitz’s arguments that ’a people and
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than cool political reason...war is a major aspect of being.’48
Hegel’s text argues that war is ’a work of freedom’ in which ’the individual’s substantive duty’ merges with the ’independence and sovereignty of the state’.49 Through war, he argues,
    the ethical health of peoples is preserved in their indifference to the stabilization of finite institutions; just as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm, so the corruption in nations would be the product of a prolonged, let alone ’perpetual’ peace.50
Hegel indeed argues that ’sacrifice on behalf of the individuality of the state is a
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realisation in which the individual dissolves into the higher unity of the state:
    The intrinsic worth of courage as a disposition of mind is to be found
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an attitude of complete indifference or even liking towards them as individuals.52
A more frank statement of the potentially lethal consequences of patriotism — and its simultaneously
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war and the social contract in the form of the national security state.
Strategic Reason and Scientific Truth
By itself, such an account of the nationalist ontology of war and security provides
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a machinic process of which war and violence are viewed as normal features.
These are the deeper claims and implications of Clausewitzian strategic reason. One of the
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, removed technical limits from the exercise of power in foreign policy’.55
Kissinger’s conviction was based not merely in his pride in the vast military and bureaucratic
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view that the real world is almost entirely internal to the observer’.56
At the same time, Kissinger’s hubris and hunger for control was beset by a
AND
hunger for stasis and certainty that would entrench U.S. hegemony:
    For the two decades after 1945, our international activities were based on the
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multipolarity even though overwhelming military strength will remain with the two superpowers.58
Kissinger’s statement revealed that such cravings for order and certainty continually confront chaos, resistance
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with a deeply controversial and divisive war to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
In this struggle with the lessons of Vietnam, revolutionary resistance, and rapid geopolitical
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associated rationality...does not inevitably produce a similar concept of reality’.61
We sense the rational policymaker’s frustrated desire: the world is supposed to work like a machine, ordered by a form of power and governmental reason which deploys machines and whose desires and processes are meant to run along ordered, rational lines like a machine. Kissinger’s desire was little different from that of Cromer who, wrote Edward Said:
    ...envisions a seat of power in the West and radiating out from it towards the East a great embracing machine, sustaining the central authority yet commanded by it. What the machine’s branches feed into it from the East — human material, material wealth, knowledge, what have you — is processed by the machine, then converted into more power...the immediate translation of mere Oriental matter into useful substance.62
This desire for order in the shadow of chaos and uncertainty — the constant war
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an exclusively quantitative analysis could science attain certain knowledge of the world’.65
Such doctrines of mathematically verifiable truth were to have powerful echoes in the 20th Century
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control of the weapons themselves, into political utility and rational strategy.66
Bacon thought of the new scientific method not merely as way of achieving a purer
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, that man may be said to be a god unto man’.68
We may be forgiven for blinking, but in Bacon’s thought ’man’ was indeed in the process of stealing a new fire from the heavens and seizing God’s power over the world for itself. Not only would the new empirical science lead to ’an improvement of mankind’s estate, and an increase in their power over nature’, but would reverse the primordial humiliation of the Fall of Adam:
    For man, by the fall, lost at once his state of innocence
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ceremonies) at length to afford mankind in some degree his bread...69
There is a breathtaking, world-creating hubris in this statement — one that
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inventions are a blessing and a benefit without injuring or afflicting any’.70
And what would be mankind’s ’bread’, the rewards of its new ’empire over creation’
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much as enlightenment; the destruction of nature as much as its utilisation.
Doubts and Fears: Technology as Ontology
If Bacon could not reasonably be expected to foresee many of these developments, the idea that scientific and technological progress could be destructive did occur to him. However it was an anxiety he summarily dismissed:
    ...let none be alarmed at the objection of the arts and sciences becoming depraved to malevolent or luxurious purposes and the like, for the same can be said of every worldly good; talent, courage, strength, beauty, riches, light itself...Only let mankind regain their rights over nature, assigned to them by the gift of God, and obtain that power, whose exercise will be governed by right reason and true religion.71
By the mid-Twentieth Century, after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such fears could no longer be so easily wished away, as the physicist and scientific director of the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer recognised. He said in a 1947 lecture:
    We felt a particularly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting and in the end in large measure achieving the realization of atomic weapons...In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no over-statement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge they cannot lose.72
Adam had fallen once more, but into a world which refused to acknowledge its
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and Descartes’ faith in mathematics to make of the Bomb a rational weapon.
Oppenheimer — who resolutely opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb — understood what the
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an unmooring quality; it finds men unprepared to deal with it.’75
Martin Heidegger questioned this mapping of natural science onto the social world in his essays
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of science for politics, knowledge for force, or force for good.
Instead, Oppenheimer saw a process frustrated by roadblocks and ruptured by irony; in
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political certainty; it turns control over ’facts’ into control over the earth.
Heidegger’s insights into this phenomena I find especially telling and disturbing — because they underline
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technology. The actual threat has already affected man in his essence.’77
This process Heidegger calls ’Enframing’ and through it the scientific mind demands that ’nature reports
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human lives are reduced to tools, obstacles, useful or obstinate matter.
This tells us much about the enduring power of crude instrumental versions of strategic thought
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of the sand and take action toward shutting down Hezbollah-land.’81
Conclusion: Violent Ontologies or Peaceful Choices?
I was motivated to begin the larger project from which this essay derives by a
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fail to question the ontological claims of political community or strategic theory.82
In the case of a theorist like Jean Bethke Elshtain, just war doctrine is
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destructive and violent way of acknowledging and dealing with conflict and difference.85
My argument here, whilst normatively sympathetic to Kant’s moral demand for the eventual abolition
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revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth.’87
What I take from Heidegger’s argument — one that I have sought to extend by
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and violence as necessary policy responses, however ineffective, dysfunctional or chaotic.
The force of my own and Heidegger’s analysis does, admittedly, tend towards a
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are certainly tremendously aggressive and energetic in continually stating and reinstating its force.
But is there a way out? Is there no possibility of agency and choice
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us valuable clues to the kind of sensibility needed, but little more.
When we consider the problem of policy, the force of this analysis suggests that
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and activating a very different concept of existence, security and action.90
This would seem to hinge upon ’questioning’ as such — on the questions we put
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to end the global rule of insecurity and violence? Will our thought?

We have reached a moment of crisis – the USFG has been co-opted by the language of the survival society where government officials maintain an atmosphere of fear to pass imperial policies – this orients society towards permanent war and evacuates critical public spheres such as debate which eviscerates agency – simulating USFG action without evaluating the securitized bedrock upon which our government formulates foreign policy makes violence inevitable

Elmer and Opel 06 – Greg Elmer, Bell Globemedia Research Chair in the School of Radio TV Arts at Ryerson University, and Andy Opel, assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Florida State University, July-September 2006, Cultural Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4-5, p. 488-490

Throughout the media discourse over the virtues or moral failings of the policy analysis markets
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to investigate impropriety or ethical lapses because the fraud may be our very own

Vote AFF to epistemologically interrogate the security logic the United States federal government used to justify its economic sanctions on Cuba – the ballot is a referendum on the desirability of security logic – debate is an academic forum and your job is to inculcate valuable understanding – having a coherent intellectual position is more important than specific political battles

Jones 99 – Professor International Politics @ Aberystwyth University (1999, Richard Wyn, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, p. 155-163)

The central political task of the intellectuals is to aid in the construction of a
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should act as both an inspiration and a challenge to critical security studies.

Representations are the organizing principles behind which culture defines and manipulates power relations to determine policy – academic interrogation is infinitely more valuable than political simulations

Hinds 26 Windt Jr 91 – (1991, Lynn Boyd, is Associate Professor
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language guides our understanding about rhetoric’s role in the political construction of reality.

To propose a decisive plan of action is to bind critical theory to political exigency – that just reifies securitization and makes progressive politics fail

Brown 05 – Professor of political science at UC Berkeley (Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics, Wendy, Professor of Poli Sci, UC Berkeley)

On the one hand, critical theory cannot let itself be bound by political exigency
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them bad conscience, at best it renews their imaginative reach and vigor.

Predictability is a nihilistic illusion built upon a myth of sameness and unity grounded in a fear of the flux and movement which lie at the heart of life – embrace the ecstasy of risk and the glory of active interpretation which uses force to wrest meaning from the abyss of nihilism

Lotringer 01 – Professor of Foreign Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, (Sylvere, "The Dance of Signs" in Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader ed. Kraus26Lotringer, Los Angeles:Semiotext(e), pg 174-176)

Freud is not blind to this: "The producer which the author makes his
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to reinvent the intensity of risks, ceaselessly menacing and forever being reborn.

A focus on the structures of security are required to transform our approach to politics

Ahmed 12 – Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development (IPRD), an independent think tank focused on the study of violent conflict, he has taught at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex "The international relations of crisis and the crisis of international relations: from the securitisation of scarcity to the militarisation of society" Global Change, Peace 26 Security Volume 23, Issue 3, 2011 Taylor Francis

While recommendations to shift our frame of orientation away from conventional state-centrism toward
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of state security planning in the context of counter-terrorism operations abroad.
The intensifying problematisation and externalisation of Muslim-majority regions and populations by Western security
AND
the efficacy of the prevailing geopolitical and economic order is ideologically beyond question.
As much as this analysis highlights a direct link between global systemic crises, social polarisation and state militarisation, it fundamentally undermines the idea of a symbiotic link between natural resources and conflict per se. Neither ’resource shortages’ nor ’resource abundance’ (in ecological, energy, food and monetary terms) necessitate conflict by themselves.
There are two key operative factors that determine whether either condition could lead to conflict
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to externalisation of those groups, and the legitimisation of violence towards them.
Ultimately, this systems approach to global crises strongly suggests that conventional policy ’reform’ is
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of the post-carbon era through social, political and economic transformation.
Yet conventional theoretical and policy approaches fail to (1) fully engage with the
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, effective, and joined-up policy-making on these issues.

Tournament: Michigan | Round: 1 | Opponent:  | Judge:
1AC – MULTILATERALISM

CONTENTION 1 IS MULTILATERALISM

Anti-americanism and unilateral military policies are decimating US legitimacy, threating the American international system – that causes excess interventions and great power wars
Kupchan 12 – Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford, Associate Professor of International Relations @gtown, Senior Fellow and Director of Europe Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (Charles Kupchan, “Sorry, Mitt: It Won't Be an American Century”, FEBRUARY 6, 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/06/it_won_t_be_an_american_century?page=0,2)

In an election season, such talk rolls easily off the tongue. But Romney's … that focuses not on ruling the roost, but on guiding a more diverse and unwieldy globe to consensus and cooperation.

Multilateralism is a credible alternative – it promotes band-wagoning and international coalitions among US allies, strengthening the US-led system and reviving legitimacy
Ikenberry and Kupchan 04 – (John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan, “Liberal Realism: The Foundations of a Democratic Foreign Policy,” National Interest (Fall 2004))

It is misguided, however, to assume that America's preponderant power, when combined with an assertive unilateralism, promotes … disaffected allies again feel like stakeholders in the international system.

Independently, rising powers are challenging the international system – legitimacy is critical to bring them safely into the international system
Fujimoto 12 – (Kevin Fujimoto 12, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, January 11, 2012, “Preserving U.S. National Security Interests Through a Liberal World Construct,” online: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/Preserving-US-National-Security-Interests-Liberal-World-Construct/2012/1/11)

The emergence of peer competitors, not terrorism, presents the greatest long-term
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protect its interests later when we are no longer the world's only superpower.

Otherwise, the consensus of hegemonic stability theorists agree that unstable power transitions cause Asian wars which go global
Kugler 06 – Professor of World Politics at Claremont Graduate University (Jacek, “The Asian Ascent: Opportunity for Peace or Precondition for War?”, http://sobek.colorado.edu/~lewiso/Kugler20-20The20Asian20Ascent.pdf)//NG

Given the fundamental importance of demographic and economic forces in establishing the roster of states
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of the enormous costs that reasonably would be anticipated from a nuclear war.

It also leads to greater power-sharing and international cooperation, resolving conflict
Pouliot 11 — Professor of Political Science at McGill University (Vincent Pouliot, “Multilateralism as an End in Itself,” International Studies Perspectives (2011) 12, 18–26)NG

Because it rests on open, nondiscriminatory debate, and the routine exchange of viewpoints
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that further strengthen the impetus for multilateral dialog. Pg. 21-23 

The plan solves– 

First, repeal would represent a commitment to multilateralism for the international community by bolstering human rights credibility – that refocuses global institutions
Burgsdorff 09 – Ph. D in Political Science from Freiburg University, EU Fellow at the University of Miami (Sven Kühn von, “Problems and Opportunities for the Incoming Obama Administration”, http://aei.pitt.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/11047/1/vonBurgsdorfUSvsCubalong09edi.pdf)//NG

In addition, the US needs to improve its international human rights reputation which was  
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it would be interpreted by the international community as steps  towards effective multilateralism.

Second, the plan fosters a credible conflict resolution model which prevents conflict – status quo policies risk disengagement
Dickerson 10 – Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, paper submitted in fulfillment of a Master of Strategic Studies Degree at the US Army War College (Sergio M, “UNITED STATES SECURITY STRATEGY TOWARDS CUBA,” 1/14/10, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a518053.pdf)//SJF

At the international political level, President Obama … plight with Cuba.35  The U.S. could begin to lead again and reverse its perceived decline in the greater global order bringing true peace for years to come.

That conflict model bolsters Obama’s credibility and convinces other countries to negotiate with the United States
Hinderdael, 11– M.A. candidate at SAIS Bologna Center (Klaas, “Breaking the Logjam: Obama's Cuba Policy and a Guideline for Improved Leadership”, http://bcjournal.org/volume-14/breaking-the-logjam.html?printerFriendly=true)//NG

Conclusion
The two countries’ histories have long been intertwined, particularly after the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 gave rise to the American belief that it would become the hemisphere’s protector. Until the immediate … diplomatic relations with the island, President Obama would indicate that he is truly willing to extend his hand once America’s traditional adversaries unclench their fists.

Third, the plan sends a clear signal of cooperation to Latin America, creating new partnerships and bolstering relations
White 13 – Senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and former U.S. ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador (Robert, “After Chávez, a Chance to Rethink Relations With Cuba”, New York Times, 3/7/13, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/opinion/after-chavez-hope-for-good-neighbors-in-latin-america.html?pagewanted=all)//TL

FOR most of our history, the United States assumed that its security was inextricably linked to a partnership with Latin … like Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, the vision of Roosevelt and Kennedy of a hemisphere of partners cooperating in matters of common concern would be reduced to a historical footnote.

Increased regional standing bolsters influence in international institutions through the creation of voting blocs, allowing the US to lead multilateral forums
Sabatini and Berger 12 – Christopher Sabatini is editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and senior director of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas. Ryan Berger is a policy associate at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas(Christopher/Ryan, "Why the U.S. can't afford to ignore Latin America" 6/13/12, CNN/Global Public Square, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/13/why-the-u-s-cant-afford-to-ignore-latin-america/)//AD

 Speaking in Santiago, Chile, in March of last year, President Obama
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S. “backyard” that is outside broader, global strategic concerns.

1AC – AG

CONTENTION 2 IS CUBAN AGRICULTURE

Global industrial agriculture is unsustainable
Peters 10 –  LL.M. expected 2011, University of Arkansas School of Law, Graduate Program in Agricultural and Food Law; J.D. 2010, University of Oregon School of Law (Kathryn, “Creating a Sustainable Urban Agriculture Revolution” J. ENVTL. LAW AND LITIGATION Vol. 25, 203, http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/251/peters.pdf)

The U.S. agricultural system is becoming increasingly more concentrated, specialized, and industrialized.10 As of this writing, ninety-eight percent of the food supply in the United States is produced by … practices in response to rapidly changing climate conditions and will help to ensure food security.

Cuba’s model of urban agriculture is a sustainable alternative
Peters 10 –  LL.M. expected 2011, University of Arkansas School of Law, Graduate Program in Agricultural and Food Law; J.D. 2010, University of Oregon School of Law (Kathryn, “Creating a Sustainable Urban Agriculture Revolution” J. ENVTL. LAW AND LITIGATION Vol. 25, 203, http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/251/peters.pdf)

While urban agriculture was a response to a dramatic crisis in Cuba’s history, through the development of a community-… and a new economy for many Cubans without negatively impacting the environment or society.

The plan solves– 

First, access to the US export market spreads the Cuban model
Kost 04 – agricultural economist, Specialty Crops Branch, Economic Research. Service, US Department of Agriculture (William, “CUBAN AGRICULTURE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE ORGANIC?”
http://www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume14/pdfs/kost.pdf)

In addition to the above European markets, the … for domestic consumption in an environment where other production approaches are just not available.

Second, normalizing trade relations gives preferential status to Cuban exports – no risk of a link turn
Ashby 11 – a Florida-based attorney, is CEO of Federal Regulatory Compliance Services and Counsel with the International law firm SNR Denton. He served at the US Commerce Department, International Trade Administration, as Director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean and acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere (Timothy, States News Service, “HELPING CUBAN REFORMS THROUGH AGRICULTURAL TRADE”, 11/22, lexis)

Cuba's private farmers are an entrepreneurial class with growing disposable income. Cuba buys imported foreign goods, including new automobiles (now also legal), and are eager to sell its … access for the island's products which are of agricultural origin and would not compete with products actually grown in the U.S.

This prevents the collapse of US agriculture
Peters 10 –  LL.M. expected 2011, University of Arkansas School of Law, Graduate Program in Agricultural and Food Law; J.D. 2010, University of Oregon School of Law (Kathryn, “Creating a Sustainable Urban Agriculture Revolution” J. ENVTL. LAW AND LITIGATION Vol. 25, 203, http://law.uoregon.edu/org/jell/docs/251/peters.pdf)

An adequate food supply is … agricultural practices, reduce the financial strain on government resources by increasing urban productivity and enabling urbanites to grow a local food supply, and reduce socioeconomic disparities by providing less-advantaged populations in urban areas with access to an adequate supply of fresh, nutritious food.

Third, the plan spreads organoponic production, revitalizing urban spaces
Shkolnick 12 – J.D. Candidate, Drake University Law School (Jacob, “SIN EMBARGO: n1 THE CUBAN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE UNITED STATES” 17 Drake J. Agric. L. 683, Fall, lexis)

VI. New Opportunities
While investment in Cuban businesses and sales or purchases of Cuban products must still move through official channels under the joint venture law or other Cuban programs, the time is …, a cost-effective and proven agricultural model like Cuba's organoponic system may be just what is needed to allow for urban agriculture to flourish.

Industrial agriculture crushes the environment and bio-diversity, threatening extinction
Ehrlich and Ehrlich 13 – Professor of Biology and Senior Research Scientist in Biology @ Stanford University (Paul R. Ehrlich (President of the Center for Conservation Biology @ Stanford University) and Anne H. Ehrlich, “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, Proc. R. Soc. B 2013 280, published online 9 January 2013)HA

Virtually every past civilization has eventually undergone collapse, a loss of socio-political-economic complexity usually … of survivors or replacement societies, the world familiar to anyone reading this study and the well-being of the vast majority of people would disappear. pg. 1-2 

Normal Trade Relations is vital – no trade occurs without it
French 09 – editor of and a frequent contributor to The Havana Note, has led more than two dozen research trips to Cuba (Anya, “Options for Engagement A Resource Guide for Reforming U.S. Policy toward Cuba” http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Cuba/USPolicy/options-for-engagement.pdf)

the path to “normal” trade relations
If the United States were to … an agreement could potentially take years, as both countries would need to adopt statutory and regulatory changes.
1AC – PLAN
PLAN –
The United States federal government should normalize trade relations with Cuba. 

1AC – TRANSITION

CONTENTION 3 IS TRANSITION

The embargo ruins Cuba’s economy – six warrants
CETIM 03 – independent research and political organization working at the UN (Centre Europe Tiers Monde, THE EFFECTS OF THE US EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA AND THE REASONS OF THE URGENT NEED TO LIFT IT, http://www.cetim.ch/oldsite/2003/03js04w4.htm)

The harmful economic effects of the embargo From an official Cuban source, the direct
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of raw materials (New York), of nickel, tobacco, rum.

And it’s on the brink – two reasons—

First, geopolitical trends catalyze economic instability and make collapse inevitable
Morris, 11 – London Metropolitan University (Emily, FORECASTING CUBA’S ECONOMY: 2, 5, AND 20 YEARS, Presented at the international symposium “Cuba Futures: Past and Present,” organized by The Cuba Project Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at The Graduate Center/CUNY, http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/bildn/cuba/cubaforecasting.pdf)

Risks in the short term Political risks arise from th e process of transferring
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within the economies of the growth leaders, China and India. 14 C

Second, Chavez’s death and the election of Maduro undermines stability
French 13 – editor of and a frequent contributor to The Havana Note, has led more than two dozen research trips to Cuba (Anya Landau, “Can Cuba Survive the Loss of Chavez”, 3/6/13, http://thehavananote.com/node/1067) MDM

At the same time, it became clear to any honest observer inside or outside
AND
countries such as China will no doubt increase economic engagement of the island.

Normalized relations with Cuba are key to resolving structural issues in Cuba’s economy
Ashby 13 – Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (Timothy, “Commentary: Presercing stability in Cuba after normalizing relations with the US”, Caribbean News Now, 4/1/13, http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-Commentary3A-Preserving-stability-in-Cuba-after-normalizing-relations-with-the-US-15197.html) MDM

Cuba under Raúl Castro has entered a new period of economic, social, and
AND
unwise to treat Cuba differently from its stated models, China and Vietnam.

And, it entrenches long-term economic stability – current reform process is failing
Piccone, 13 – Brookings Institute Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Foreign Policy (Joseph, “Opening to Havana”, 1/17/13, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/opening-to-havana)

Under Raul Castro, the Cuban government has continued to undertake a number of important
AND
Cuban government to engage constructively alongside an effort to empower the Cuban people.

Two impacts –

First, Cuban economic collapse crushes U.S. deterrence and exacerbates hotspots
Gorrell 05 – Lieutenant Colonel (Tim, “CUBA: THE NEXT UNANTICIPATED ANTICIPATED STRATEGIC CRISIS?” 3/18/5, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA433074)

Regardless of the succession, under the current U.S. policy, Cuba’s
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in an effort to facilitate a manageable transition to post-Castro Cuba?

Hotspot escalation goes nuclear
Bosco 06 – senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine (David, “Forum: Keeping an eye peeled for World War III” http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06211/709477-109.stm_)

The understanding that small but violent acts can spark global conflagration is etched into the
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not even a hint that France, Russia or China would respond militarily.

Second, Cuban failed state triggers terrorism
Piazza 08 – Assistant Professor Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (James A., "Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing
States Promote Transnational Terrorism?," International Studies Quarterly, 2008, http://www.politicalscience.uncc.edu/jpiazza/Terrorism20and20Failed20States20ISQ202008.pdf, SMS)

Both failed and failing states, scholars argue, are theoretically more likely to contain
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service to win the support of the local population and widen their activities.

Causes extinction – high probability
Hellman 08 – Martin E. Hellman, Professor @ Stanford, “Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence” SPRING 2008 THE BENT OF TAU BETA PI, http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf

The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat
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assume that  preventing World War III is a necessity—not an option.

Tournament: Wake Forest | Round: Semis | Opponent: Bronx Law AL | Judge: Jim Schultz, Maria Liu, Melanie Campbell
2ac appeasement (l)
The entire aff is a link-turn- it boosts obama’s credibility and solves rogue regimes- that’s Dickerson
No cred turn to lifting the embargo – it’s consistent with US policy of engaging other human rights violators and it restores overall US influence
Hanson, Batten, and Ealey, 13 – economic researcher AEI, affiliate of the UNC department of public policy, and a financial analyst (Daniel, Dayne, and Harrison, “It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba”, Forbes, 1/16/13, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/)//eek

Since Fidel Castro abdicated … the embargo to go.

Easing the embargo makes communism more easy to contain – comparatively better than any possible hit to US cred
Safran 2012 -Master of Science in Global Affairs (with distinction) at New York University
(Brian, “End the Cuban Embargo”, 2012, http://brian-safran-4.quora.com/End-the-Cuban-Embargo-Brian-Safran, google scholar)KW

The continuance of the …of its international engagements.

Influence leads to regional arms races and US-Russian war
Nyquist 06, Independent journalist and policy analyst. Jeffrey Nyquist is a writer for Financial Sense and an expert in Chinese and Russian military and foreign policy strategies. He was formerly a Contractor for the Defense Intelligence Agency(Jeffrey, "MORE TRICKS," 3/24/06, Financial Sense, http://www.financialsensearchive.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis /2006/0324.html)AD 

 The strategic … interconnected. 

Russia impact is wrong – not a threat and miscalc risk’s exaggerated.
Graham ‘7
(Thomas, a retired U.S. diplomat and Clinton-era arms-control ambassador, Russia in Global Affairs, "The dialectics of strength and weakness", http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/20/1129.html)

An astute historian ….with Russia.

kashmir
The plan solves Kashmir conflict- that’s Dickerson.
Kashmir conflict causes extinction
*Kashmir conflict causes extinction – war between India and Pakistan over the region escalates to nuclear war – embroils the entirety of South Asia into conflict – uniquely escalates because of all the countries which have nuclear weapons in the region
Zargar 6/7 – Middle East reporter, Greater Kashmir News (Abdul Majid, “Kashmir Vs Global Community,” 6/7/13, http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Jun/8/kashmir-vs-global-community-57.asp)//SJF

Normal relations between …. suffer and suffer irretrievably.

multilateralism solves iran
Hinderdael, 11– M.A. candidate at SAIS Bologna Center (Klaas, “Breaking the Logjam: Obama's Cuba Policy and a Guideline for Improved Leadership”, http://bcjournal.org/volume-14/breaking-the-logjam.html?printerFriendly=true)//NG

Conclusion
The two countries’ …. unclench their fists.

Middle East war goes nuclear – outweighs every impact and rationality doesn’t check
*Middle East war goes nuclear – strikes in Israel spike retaliatory action that escalate quickly in the unstable region, spurs Sunni versus Shia conflict and terrorist warfare
*impact defense doesn’t apply –
a. technological improvements make it easier to transfer nuclear devices
b. climate change aggravates water scarcity which guarantees war absent credible dialogue to resolve geopolitical tensions, overwhelms their rationality checks arguments
Beck 5/28 – Middle East Analyst at TheCommentator (Noah, “A nuclear Middle East is doomsday, 5/28/13, http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3633/a_nuclear_middle_east_is_doomsday)//SJF

As the Obama administration ….time, is far worse.
     xt– im

The plan solves North Korean war actually causes extinction
Hayes and Hamel-Green 10 – Professor of International Relations, RMIT University AND Professor of Arts, Education, and Human Development at Victoria University (Peter AND Michael, “"The Path Not Taken, The Way Still Open: Denuclearizing The Korean Peninsula And Northeast Asia,", http://www.japanfocus.org/-Michael-Hamel_Green/3267#sthash.AkKdViI5.dpuf)//NG

The consequences of failing …. American nuclear hegemony.”8

nuclear terror
Multilateralism solves nuclear terrorism
Ikenberry and Kupchan 04 – (John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan, “Liberal Realism: The Foundations of a Democratic Foreign Policy,” National Interest (Fall 2004))

First, Washington must … in the Muslim world.

Nuclear terrorism escalates to major nuclear war – multilateralism facilitates cooperation over nuclear material transfers which are key
Ayson 10 – Robert – Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington – “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July, obtained via InformaWorld

A terrorist nuclear attack… fissile material holdings.

2ac shutdown
Shutdown inevitable
Scheiber, 9/15/13 - senior editor at The New Republic (Noam, “This Time There Really Will Be a Government Shutdown And that's not all bad” New Republic, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114728/boehner-and-obama-cant-avoid-government-shutdown)

Suffice it to say, …. more favorable to the GOP.2

PC not key
Gandelman, 9/18/13 – (Joe, “Republicans all in: government shutdown by Repubicans virtually certain” http://themoderatevoice.com/186749/republicans-all-in-government-shutdown-by-repubicans-virtually-certain/)

It’s going to happen. … that doesn’t seem to exist.

It’s temporary and empirically no impact
Taylor, 9/19/13 (Andrew, Associated Press, “Here's the truth: The government doesn't shut down” http://www.wtnh.com/news/politics/heres-the-truth-the-government-doesnt-shut-down-nd13-jgr)

From a practical perspective, …"protect life and property."

New EPA regulations causing a Congressional backlash now
Davenport, 9/20/13 (Carol, “White House Rolls Out Tough New Climate-Change Rules” National Journal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/white-house-rolls-out-tough-new-climate-change-rules-20130920)

In his January State … and slammed the climate rules.

Their link evidence is just rhetoric,  and it’s out of date – it’s before the decision to cancel recess and time questions are premature
Berman, 9/19/13 (Russell, The Hill, “Boehner challenges Senate GOP to 'get the job done' on defunding” Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/323347-boehner-challenges-senate-gop-to-get-the-job-done-#ixzz2fPFcvm4e 

Pressed on the point, …next weekend to speculate.”

N/U – food stamps
Nixon, 9/19/13 (Ron, House Republicans Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/us/politics/house-passes-bill-cutting-40-billion-from-food-stamps.html?_r=0)

House Republicans narrowly pushed … monumental waste of time.”

Benghazi
Welna, 9/19/13 (David, “As Government Shutdown Looms, Benghazi Hearings Resume” Rhode Island Public Radio, http://ripr.org/post/government-shutdown-looms-benghazi-hearings-resume)

It was a day …over a year ago.

2ac neolib
Alt can’t solve and neolib inevitable – Cuba government can’t be convinced to bail on neoliberalism
Perez 12 – Yenisel Rodriguez Perez – lived in Cuba for his entire life until March 30, 2013. Currently a resident in the city of Miami.  Writer for the Havana Times and holds a degree in socio-cultural studies –
“The Ideological Success of Neoliberalism in Cuba” – Havana Times – April 29, 2012
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=68708#sthash.tWIio2fK.dpuf

Despite this, we know … and social inequality.

Thus, alt causes oppression and won’t solve. Non-State Cuban resistance deflects attention and boosts structural violence
Powell 08 – Kathy Powell. Lecturer, PhD Social Anthroplogy – National University of Ireland, Galway. Critique of Anthropology – Vol 28(2) p. 177–197 – Sage Database

The unequivocal ‘the people … day-to-daysocial reproduction.

There’s no alternative- chinese fill-in ensures mercantilism
Posen, 9 - Deputy director and senior fellow of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (Adam, “Economic leadership beyond the crisis,”http:clients.squareeye.com/uploads/foresight/documents/PN20USA_FINAL_LR_1.pdf)
In the postwar period, … on the following priority measures.

Free trade decreases poverty - prefer our evidence – it’s reverse-causal, their authors ignore statistics, and don’t assume other causes for poverty – this is Latin America specific
Ganuza et al 5 (Enrique, resident representative of the United Nations in Santiago de Chile and was chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at the initiation of the project leading to the present publication, “Are Export Promotion and Trade Liberalization Good for  Latin America’s Poor?,” May 2005, http://www.oas.org/udse/english/documentos/IIgrupostrabajo/Chapt3Ganuza.pdf)//acjs  ECLAC = Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean

It is useful to … medicine predicted a decade ago. 

Neoliberalism is inevitable and sustainable
Peck 2—Canada Research Chair in Urban and Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia. Former Honourary Professorial Fellow, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester. PhD in Geography. AND—Adam Tickell—Professor of Geography, University of Bristol. PhD (Jamie, Neoliberalizing space,  Antipode 34 (3): 380-404, AMiles)

In many respects…. a mirror to the process

Tournament: Harvard RR | Round: 2 | Opponent: Stratford OS | Judge: Ben Crossan
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