Bill Fouché, Baylor University

1982, Arms Sales: Politics of Destruction

Very little has be-en written about disadvantages and their role in winning debates. Most of what debaters know about disads they have gleaned from in-round experience and summer workshops. This article is an attempt to outline the basics of arguing disadvantages effectively: why disadvantages are important, what elements they should include, how to construct them, and most importantly, how to extend them effectively in rebuttals.

The Importance of the Disadvantage

As its name suggests a disadvantage is the logical counterpart of an affirmative advantage. Instead of delineating a beneficial effect, a disadvantage outlines a particular undesirable consequence of the affirmative plan. Disadvantages play a crucial role in modern negative strategy because they comprise the offensive component of the negative position. Without them, many judges will refuse to vote negative.

It is important to realize that debate is a dynamic and constantly evolving activity. It is only relatively recently that disadvantages have assumed such vast importance in winning negatives. A few years ago the affirmative "burden of proof" was much heavier in the minds of most judges. Negative presumption functioned as a kind of preconceived disadvantage, the Proverbial "risk of change" that was automatically factored into most decisions. As the stock issues perspective gradually gave way to policy-making and the comparative advantage case, presumption was relegated to the role of breaking ties. Negatives were for the first time forced to actively argue what presumption had previously argued for them, that the affirmative change involved considerable risks. In this way the disadvantage has evolved over the years from the least important of the four "stock issues" to the centerpiece of negative strategy. Since the rise in prominence of policy-making is largely responsible for today's heavy emphasis on disads, it is vital that the second negative understand the policy-making worldview and how it differs from that of the traditional stock issues judge.

The stock issues judge sees the affirmative case as resting on four pillars of refutation: significance, inherence, solvency, and disadvantages. Since he sees proving all four stock issues as essential to a prima facie case, the negative need win only one of the four to win his negative ballot. Approaching debate as a policy-maker, the second negative should take a different view. Rather than seeing significance, inherence and solvency as three separate chances for negative victory, he should view each as a different means toward the same end: reducing the size of the benefit that the affirmative may legitimately claim to accrue from their proposal. By itself a strategy employing only these three issues will be unlikely to persuade a Policy judge to vote negative. Since he considers presumption to be negligible, the negative must accomplish the almost impossible task of reducing the affirmative advantage to zero in order to glean his ballot. Given the near impossibility or eradicating all affirmative significance, resenting disadvantages allows the negative to counter-balance what's left of the affirmative advantage by suggesting that it is outweighed by far more serious undesirable consequences.

Almost no judge will absolutely refuse to vote negative without a disadvantage, but on those occasions when the policy-maker does so, it is only because the negative has won a case argument that is absolutely devastating. Why should the intelligent negative team put such an overwhelming burden on themselves? Even if the first negative always performs brilliantly, a good affirmative team can almost always win some marginal benefit to adopting their proposal. It only makes good strategic sense for the second negative to cover himself in the vast majority of rounds when the affirmative is winning some notion of their advantage.

Requirements of a PRIMA FACIE Disadvantage

As I suggested earlier, the disadvantage is the logical counterpart of an affirmative advantage. Like an affirmative advantage a disad also should be prima facie, i.e. in the absence of 1AP responses, the disad should stand alone as a reason to reject the affirmative plan. Although presumption and burden of proof have lost their luster in the minds of many judges, it is worth noting that it is the second negative's burden to prove his disadvantage. It is incorrect to assume, for example, that just because the first affirmative cannot document the cost of the affirmative plan, the second negative can freely assert one that is exorbitant. In the absence of evidence linking the plan to an undesirable effect, presumption is against the disadvantage link.

To he prima facie, a disad requires more than the mere suggestion of undesirable consequences. First, the disadvantage must be significant along the same order of magnitude as the affirmative advantage. Disadvantage significance is called IMPACT. If the affirmative claims to prevent a superpower nuclear exchange a disad impacting in a higher price for tea in China would be inappropriately small. Within the bounds of reasonableness and believability, the larger the disad impact, the stronger is the Position of the negative.

Every debater who has written a disadvantage knows that disads are rarely discovered in one-card form. Even the expert researcher is unlikely to uncover evidence suggesting that banning arms sales to Lower Slobovia will cause the world to disintegrate in a spontaneous nuclear holocaust. To reach a stage of adequate impact requires several intermediate causal steps or LINKS. In fact, a disadvantage does nothing more than describe a chain of events that are initiated by the plan and concluded in calamity. Although debaters often refer to "THE LINK" of a disad meaning the initial link from the plan to the first step in the chain of events, the links between successive steps are just as important: A disad is like a line of dominoes standing on end. The plan causes the first domino to fall, striking the second domino which topples the third, and so on down the line. As the last domino falls, it strikes a sensitive electric plate that triggers an explosion. All dominoes must be positioned perfectly; if one is too heavy to be easily toppled or for any other reason fails to fall, there will be no contact with the electric plate and hence no explosion. To credibly prove that the affirmative plan results in a disaster, the second negative must carefully document each intermediate step.

The final prima facie burden of a disadvantage is UNIQUIENESS. The policy-maker's task is to choose between the plan and the status quo based on which of the two is more desirable. He is therefore only interested in the unique effects of each policy -- consequences that occur under one system but not the other. Uniqueness is to disads as inherency is to advantages. The negative must demonstrate that the disadvantage occurs only if the plan is adopted and would not occur in the present system. Back to the domino model, the disad is unique if we are certain that none of the dominoes will be toppled without the plan's initial shove. If the dominoes are so unstable that anv or all are likely to topple soon anyway, the explosion is inevitable whether or not the plan is adopted. If the present system causes the disadvantage to the same degree that the plan does then the disadvantage is non-unique, and rendered irrelevant to the decision.

Constructing Disadvantages

Hopefully, the preceding sections have provided the readers with an increased understanding of the theoretical concerns of the second negative in arguing disadvantages. From this point forward, the focus will be purely practical -- the "how to" of successfully writing and winning disadvantages. Unfortunately, this task does not lend itself to simple formulae, the skills and insight required of a competent second negative are largely learned through the hard knocks of experience. With this disclaimer out of the way, I will suggest three steps to writing good disadvantages.

First, you should read widely on the affirmative area to which you wish your disad to apply. If the affirmative bans arms sales to Pakistan, seek out the rationale of current policy-makers in promoting the selling of those arms. If the present system pursues a particular course of action, some constituency somewhere thinks that policy is desirable. In your reading of this literature you should examine the externalities of the affirmative plan. All policies have unforeseen third and fourth order consequences some of which are bound to make creative and winnable disadvantages. A helpful place to begin your research is with the affirmative sources. A good second negative should be able to turn an unclaimed affirmative advantage into a link to a disad. On this year's topic, the U.S. Department of State Bulletin should prove quite useful in this regard. In this government publication, the State Department religiously defends current U.S. foreign policy decisions.

Second, after choosing an idea for a disad, cut a considerable amount of quality evidence on that thesis. Suppose that the real U.S. motive in selling arms to Pakistan is to forestall Pakistani efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Some authors suggest that Pakistan is very wary, of nearby India (who already has nuclear capability). 1-U.S. arms sales to Pakistan make that nation feel secure enough to abstain from developing their own nuclear bomb. The thesis of the disad suggested by these authors is obvious: banning U.S. arms sales to Pakistan would force that nation to develop nuclear weapons. While cutting evidence to support this thesis, it is important to remember the elements of a prima facie disadvantage. You must find link evidence suggesting that U.S. arms sales are crucial ingredient to Pakistan's security. You must prove that the perception of abandonment by the U.S. would force Pakistan to seek nuclear weapons. You must prove that if they sought nukes, the Pakistanis possess the means to either develop them indigenously or to acquire them from abroad, and you must link the acquisition of Pakistani nuclear weaponry to some catastrophe -- perhaps a war with India. The research operation should continue until every link can be proven to perfection. The importance of finding quality evidence cannot he over-emphasized; good evidence is the sine qua non of a good disad.

Finally, you should structure the disadvantage in good outline form and choose evidence to support each sub-point. There is no one correct way to structure a disadvantage. If three championship second negatives were handed a stack of fifty cards, each would construct the disad differently. A disadvantage has been structured well if it promotes the dual goals of clarity and extendibility. Clarity means that the final structure should effectively communicate the thesis of the disad. A clear disadvantage is not only logically constructed, but each sub-point has been worded with meticulous care. Every label should he short, sweet, and crystal clear. In short, your task in writing disads is to take a jumble of possible events, to sort them, and to rearrange them into a sequence so logical that it appears to be an inevitable consequence of adopting the affirmative plan. The second overriding consideration in writing disads is extendibility; the structure of the disadvantage should be conducive to effectively answering the 1AR objections. You should he acutely aware of the weaknesses in the particular chain of consequences that comprise the disadvantage. This task demands a critical reading of the literature describing the disad thesis as well as an appreciation of the various strategies available to the affirmative in exploiting those weaknesses. The final section of this essay discusses a few of the more common 1AR strategies in some detail.

Where Disads Falter (Or Damn That Domino.)

Competence at writing and winning disadvantages requires a sense of strategy and an understanding of disadvantages as complex causal mechanisms. Most of the problems encountered by the second negative rebuttalist (2NR) stem from the special nature of disadvantages. For the most part, disadvantages describe one particular disaster scenario that might result from the adoption of the affirmative policy. Rarely are they as simple as direct cause and effect, rather disadvantages are a function of probable consequences. Picture a judge as sitting at a table of delicious foods upon which rests the deadly domino apparatus described earlier. In his constructive, the second negative argues vehemently that touching the table to grab the food would be very dangerous for it just might topple a domino. Were that to happen, the judge would be destroyed in the resulting explosion. Whether or not the judge chooses to touch the table depends on his assessment of the probabilities of accruing benefits (good food) versus the risks of disadvantages (death). The IAR task is to argumentatively dismantle the domino mechanism, to convince the judge that the probability of the explosion is very low. The 1AR may choose any of a variety of ways to defeat a disadvantage.

First, he may deny the initial link of the disad, i.e. argue that the Plan fails to topple the first domino. This is by far the most common 1AR response to any disad and it can take several forms. He may simply read evidence that counters the second negative link evidence. Against the Pakistan disad, the 1AR might read evidence saying, "...banning U.S. arms sales to Pakistan would have no effect on that country's desire for nuclear weapons."** A more sophisticated way of denying the link is to press the second negative to quantify the THRESHOLD of the disad, i.e. to define the precise level of insecurity that Pakistan must perceive before they decide to build a nuclear weapon. The IAR may further press the second negative to demonstrate that the action of the plan is sufficient to push Pakistan across the nuclear threshold. The concept of a link threshold is particularly damaging if the affirmative plan does nothing more than slightly modify the present system. For example, suppose that instead of banning arms sales that the affirmative merely replaced the existing offensive weapons with defensive weapons. The problems of dealing with affirmatives who advocate small changes apply to more than the initial disad link; link and threshold arguments can be successfully leveled against any of the causal steps in a disadvantage's chain of consequences. The dismantling of but one domino defuses the bomb.

Denying uniqueness is another useful tool for the first affirmative rebuttalist. It is a way of minimizing the degree of difference between the two Policies being compared. In other words it seeks to accomplish a similar goal to the affirmative who advocates a small change--to narrow the gulf between what the plan does and what the status quo is already doing. The astute observer will quickly see this as no more than a poorly disguised affirmative effort to argue against their own inherency! The poorly coordinated negative attack often sets this up perfectly for the 1AR. When the first negative has argued that the status quo is now accomplishing the plan's intent, then the affirmative may reasonability suggest that the present system should have already caused the disad. The above is not to suggest that uniqueness only involves the initial disad link. In fact, sometimes the best affirmative strategy is to beat the uniqueness of a latter consequence--the impact perhaps. The IAR could argue, for example, that Pakistan has already developed and deployed nuclear weapons. If he wins this argument that Pakistan disad is rendered irrelevant.

A careful examination of these three strategies reveals that in one way or another they all argue against the disadvantage link. Just as the first negative minimizes the affirmative advantage by arguing significance, inherency and solvency, so the 1A.R presses links, thresholds and uniqueness in an effort to make the disadvantage seem lile an improbable consequence of the plan. The 1AR understands that if he succeeds in blurring the distinctions between present system and plan--if he succeeds in making the causality appear distant and nebulous--then he has succeeded in persuading the judge that despite the disad's massive impact, it is sufficiently improbable to be dismissed as a reason for decision. THUS REDUCED TO ITS ESSENCE, THP KEY TO EXTENDING, DISADS AND ANSWERING THE 1AR OBJECTIONS IS TO UNDERSTAND EXACTLY WHY THE PLAN CAUSES THE DISADVANTAGES AND WHY THE PLAN CAUSES THE DISADVANTAGES AND WHY THE PRESENT SYSTEM AVOIDS IT. In short, why is it that the unique increment of change advocated by the affirmative topples the first domino? If you understand the answer to this question and can cogently convey that notion to a judge, and if your evidence supports your analysis then quite simply you will win the disad. Second negative constructive is, of course, the proper time to clearly argue the link.

The ideal and simplest way to argue the disad link is via impeccable proof. Nothing is more likely to cause 1AR to choke on his tongue than hearing a link card so specific to the affirmative change that it cannot be pressed with dignity. If in your research you find evidence saving that "without sales of weapon X from the United States, Pakistan would undoubtedly go nuclear,"** then your troubles are over. As a conscientious second negative, however, I must warn you that very few of these once in-a-lifetime cards are findable. For this reason second negatives must turn to other devices for arguing links. A second approach for arguing link is the "on the brink" approach. Employing this strategy, the second negative would suggest that we are now poised on the brink of something and the plan is just enough to push us over. In arguing brink links, you would admit to some uniqueness problems but argue that the fact that the status quo is already experiencing some difficulties has only magnifying the risk of aggravating an already bad situation by voting affirmative. Or by the analogy, the status quo has already tilted the first domino until it is precariously poised on edge -- so much as a puff of air and it topples into nuclear holocaust. Here again the quality of evidence is crucial. A good brink card should be very recent (to post-date all the present system's moves in the affirmative direction) and it must concretely describe something analogous to the teetering domino. The final approach is to argue that your disad link, rather than depending on reaching a certain threshold, is linear. In essence this approach suggests that there is a direct and continuous relationship between two phenomena. The domino model obviously does not adequately represent the idea of linear links. Envision instead an electric circuit comprised of several rheostats (light dimmers, a switch that can be varied to any voltage level). At the end of the circuit is Mr. Spock's phaser. As the initial rheostat is varied upward, the power to the phaser increases in direct proportion to the increase in voltage allowed by the rheostat. Notice how simple establishing a link is if the disadvantage is of the linear variety. Any increase in voltage will manifest itself in some amount of increased damage caused by the more powerful phaser that results from the plan. It should be obvious that linear links are highly desirable. It would be more than a mild understatement to suggest that a generic disadvantage of this variety would pose a serious threat to even the smallest of affirmative changes.

In conclusion, this article has not provided easy answers to what second negative is all about. There are no easy answers. My intent has been to explain how the second negative should see the debate world. More so than any other speech, arguing the second negative effectively requires a new way of thinking. If this article has clarified the thought processes involved, then the library is the only remaining obstacle to second negative Nirvana. Although arguing disadvantages is far from easy, it provides a worthwhile taste of the world of policy-making and the nature of unintended consequences.

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**(EDITOR'S NOTE: The material contained within quotation marks in this article is purely illustrational of what the real card might look like. It is not intended to be interpreted or used as an actual evidence card.)

BILL FOUCHE earned his BBA degree in economics and quantitative analysis from Baylor University. He has won many awards in debate including being named third speaker at the 1982 National Debate Tournament.