By Charis Baker

A Negative perspective on Resolved: In foreign policy, diplomacy is more effective than military intervention.

Because our previous post, Bandaids Don't Fix Bullet Holes covered both the Affirmative side as well as some introductory strategies that apply to both sides of the resolution, we'll focus this article primarily on leading Negative arguments. Let's dive in!

Scope

Given the wording of the resolution, I find it likely that a lot of Negative ground can be made impacting back to the meaning of the word "effective." Were the resolution "In foreign policy, diplomacy ought to be prioritized over military intervention," the Affirmative would most certainly be able to establish a strong link to a moral ground (as could Negative), but that is not the resolution. Regardless of what side you are on, but especially as Negative, you should be prepared to delink cases arguing purely from a moral ground.

Regardless of what side you are on, but especially as Negative, you should be prepared to delink cases arguing purely from a moral ground.

That's not what the resolution is asking. It's asking a question of effectiveness, which per most common dictionaries, requires criteria such as success, reaching an intended result, or achieving a stated goal. If we examine this purely as a matter of semantics, there is no inherent moral valence here. Now, that is not to say that debaters should refrain from using moral arguments in their cases. On the contrary, moral arguments, given the context of Stoa and Lincoln Douglas debate, will always be a very powerful tool. Winning the moral high ground is vital, regardless of your resolution or form of debate. But on this resolution specifically, that cannot be your only point of impact calculus. There is a pragmatic side that must also be examined in order to be prima facie and specifically address effectiveness. A case that has not done this will not have upheld or negated the resolution.

When it comes to what effectiveness specifically means, side Negative will need to answer two questions: 1) What are the specific goals of foreign policy and 2) What is the context in which these goals are being achieved? As with the Affirmative, the value should be answering the "What is our goal?" question. Yet, argumentation can also go deeper to analyze effectiveness based on speed of results, long-term stability, humanitarian protection, deterrence, and overall national interests.

Secondly, it will likely benefit Negatives to frame an argument that establishes a prerequisite. If you have been in LD for any amount of time, you are likely familiar with chicken and the egg arguments. Unfortunately, because diplomacy and military intervention interact so frequently within international relations, this argument will likely be inevitable on this resolution. Fortunately, empirics back the Negative side up well in this regard. There is a fairly strong link to be made that diplomacy requires enforcement and at least the threat of military intervention to succeed. On a framework level, debaters can build a link on the definitional ground that this threat falls under military intervention. However, there is still support on the Affirmative side where authors have reached opposite conclusions in favor of diplomacy. For both of these pieces of evidence you should check out Speaking with Grace LD Sourcebook!

In short, Negatives should clarify that 1) Military intervention and diplomacy are not mutually exclusive and 2) that effectiveness requires enforcement.

Finally, as a brief note of debate theory, as with nearly any resolution, it would behoove side Negative to clarify that the burden of proof and the general rule both fall upon the Affirmative. This means that the Affirmative must prove that diplomacy is consistently more effective than military intervention in a broad range of situations.

Structure

There are a number of offensive and defensive strategies at the disposal of Negative debaters. Appeasement, opportunity cost, asymmetrical warfare, bad faith actors, deterrence, and precision strikes are all topics you can expect to hear discussed this year.

Strong Affirmatives will try and win the moral high ground. At first, diplomacy sounds peaceful, humane, inexpensive, and responsible. Whereas military intervention sounds like an inescapable pool of death. What you don't want to do is spend the round on defense. How can you as Negative reframe this narrative?

You'll want to do so quickly and decisively. Start from the foundation & impact it out. Luckily, you can do so with two key facets of diplomacy. Compromise & appeasement. From a Negative perspective, it will be strategic to frame this in such a way that they go hand in hand. Because "successful" diplomacy requires compromise, it will necessarily entail some level of appeasement, the amount of which only grows with bad faith actors. As seen in numerous historical examples, appeasement is not effective foreign policy and thus, diplomacy is less effective. To impact on a deeper level, analysis can be made regarding the reaction of power to appeasement. Appeasement incentivizes aggression and in so doing, makes future conflict and repercussions worse, not better.

Similar to the dangers of appeasement, the opportunity cost of diplomacy provides strong arguments against the Affirmative. Diplomatic engagements have been accused of wasting valuable time, money, and resources. Perhaps the greatest impact here is the wasted time which can result in more deaths the longer fighting occurs. Eastern Europe throughout the second half of the twentieth century provides various examples of this, including Russian negotiations that were manipulated to waste time while their military continued committing atrocities against human life. In the same way, diplomacy, especially when seeking to appease enemies, can waste money and resources by agreeing to diplomatic terms that fail to address the root causes and only prolong, if not proliferate conflict.

Another major area for Negative argumentation is in the distinction between bad faith and good faith actors.

As Margaret Thatcher famously warned, "we don't negotiate with terrorists."

As Margaret Thatcher famously warned, "we don't negotiate with terrorists." Why was this? Because terrorists don't negotiate in good faith. While diplomacy relies on the pursuit of self-interest, it also relies on a willingness to negotiate in good faith. Often, because they lack the incentive that states have to do so, non-state actors are unwilling to negotiate in this way. Rather than mitigating conflicts, the opposite often occurs. Negotiating with bad faith actors it can be argued, only pours gas on a bonfire.

When developing the framework of this argument, both Negative and Affirmatives will want to be well briefed on the implications to the general rule. There's some fairly significant data out there on this subject. One of the main terms that debaters will want to familiarize themselves with is "asymmetrical warfare" where conflict occurs between state and non-state actors. These types of conflicts have become an increasingly hot topic of discussion within international relations since approximately the 1990s.

Finally, strong Negatives will be able to build the link from military intervention to deterrence. Starting at the definitional level, Negatives will want to link the threat of force to the nature of military intervention. Progressing through a few logical steps, the Negative can actually co-opt side Affirmative's goal of decreased conflict through the threat of military intervention as a deterrent force.

In addition to the forms of impacts mentioned in Bandaids Don't Fix Bullet Holes, there are a number of other impacts that can be specifically exploited by side Negative. Security and survival encompass two of the most basic existential impacts that face actors within international relations. For example, WWII was ended not through diplomacy but military intervention.

Second, military intervention will likely be impacted to the speed at which operations can be conducted. The prevailing literature within international relations provides a critique of diplomacy based on the potential for a painfully slow process. Military intervention produces almost immediate results whereas diplomacy can take weeks or even months.

While many may at first presuppose international credibility to be strengthened by diplomacy, military intervention, as a tool of enforcement, can be used to counter the impacts of diplomatic credibility. Instead, diplomacy can be framed as weak talk apart from the presence of military intervention. Similarly, the aforementioned points regarding human rights, opportunity cost, and enforcement can all be turned into strong points of impact calculus.

In conclusion, as with any resolution, creating a strong Negative narrative to effectively counter any Affirmative case you may hit will be vital to winning rounds. Successful negative strategies will effectively link an objective interpretation of the resolution to high-level crystal clear impacts.