and we’re off…
Congrats to the NFA community – I’m thrilled about this topic! It’s an issue that I think is tremendously significant given recent changes in Cuban domestic politics and will probably be a substantial part of the larger 2008 Presidential election debate. It’s also straightforward and easy to understand: The affirmative should constructively engage and the negative should not. Cuba is also a topic that most college students are somewhat familiar with and schools probably have a class that deals with Cuba – go find those professors and discuss with them the topic!
I think, initially, the negative has a higher burden in many of these rounds. The US has had a policy for almost 50 years of an embargo and non-engagement – most would say it has not worked out that well. Any change probably has a good chance at improving the situation. I think this will be a big year of the counterplan and big politics disadvantages – look for major posts on those topics in the upcoming weeks.
When a new topic comes out the initial reaction may be to go start researching cases – what will I run on this topic? However, I think a much more productive way to spend the next few weeks is getting your topicality file in order – what do all the words in the resolution mean? That will then help guide you in your research so you are not spending time on cases that other teams can easily beat on topicality.
We’re going to try and use the comment section on the site a lot more – what is your initial reaction to the topic? Any sources you use to start looking for definitions of key terms?
Looking forward to another productive season of NFA-LD in Southern California – a few big announcements coming up and the tournament schedule should be available soon of Southern California tournaments offering NFA-LD. Let’s go!
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Comments
I certainly think a political philosophy position would be really interesting… It would also be interesting to compare China and Cuba – have our different policies towards each ‘communist’ country resulted in different outcomes or the same? Imagine if we traded with Cuba as we did China – would the result be different?
Neg can always point out flaws in the affirmative case – even on a topic that’s really slanted the skill of listening to what the other debater is actually arguing may well be rewarded with this topic! Catching a debater with power tagged evidence and reading their evidence to find flaws could be a good generic negative strategy – and one that would be helpful outside debate to practice.
I believe that negative ground could also include constructive engagement in a different way, as long as it was competitive with the Affirmative plan. Many judges do accept topical counter-plans. An alternate agent counterplan would be an example.
As far as I can tell, also, there are some states that currently trade with Cuba now, like Maine, so in some ways the embargo has not gone on that long…just Federally.
And as far as whether an Affirmative case it going to be deemed anti-communist, that is debatable (ha ha). The whole point of constructive engagement is to lend help in some way in spite of political and/or philosophical differences. It could be that the Affirmative plan does nothing to support or negate the philosophy of Communism, and of course the definition of Communism is debatable as well.
Thanks for giving away my general neg strat Tariq…lol jk… I have been considering that concept for quite some time now.
The notion about whether our foreign policy goals can mesh with the current leftist turn within Latin America, specifically Cuba.
To answer your original question, however, I think that you can engage the concept of Cuba without having to deal with the Helms Burton-Act, primarily because it only deals with trade. Remember we still have foreign exchange students and we are already in there helping the Cubans
We’ve helped with hurricane Dennis
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/49296.htm
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spent about $12 million on nuclear technical assistance projects for Cuba from 1963 through 1996. About three-quarters of the assistance consisted of equipment, such as computer systems, and radiation-monitoring and laboratory equipment. In 1997 the IAEA approved an additional $1.7 million for nuclear technical assistance for Cuba through 1999. Most of IAEA’s assistance projects were funded through the agency’s technical cooperation fund, which is supported by member states’ voluntary contribution. From 1981 through 1995, the United States withheld about $2 million from its voluntary contribution that otherwise would have gone for nuclear technical assistance for Cuba. Of the total dollar value of all projects IAEA has provided for Cuba, about $680,000 was approved for nuclear safety assistance for Cuba’s nuclear power reactors from 1991 through 1998. US officials did not object to IAEA providing nuclear safety assistance to Cuba’s reactors because the United States generally supports nuclear safety assistance.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/cuba/
AND provide humanitarian assistance
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/cuba/2605.htm
However I do think to engage it from a completely political philosophy viewpoint would be amazing…Maybe we could debate it out one round….I’m ready 
With the 2000 humanitarian exemption it’s okay for the US to sell food and medical supplies, but I believe trade is still a no-no (when was the last time you bought Cuban sugar in you local supermarket). If we normalize relations with Cuba, or “constructively engage” aff. still cannot guarantee that Raul (or any successive collegiate leadership) will allow a greater level of market liberalization to take place. All aff. could really claim is a greater propensity for market reforms, but nothing immediate. Aff can’t even guarantee human rights reforms, which, in all fairness, aren’t happening in the status quo.
Not sure I would run a topical-CP. Too many school like playing by the rules and would have no problem pulling out the NFA rule book in round. Ask El-Camino about rules infractions.
The funny thing about constructive engagement is that the text of the Libertad Act (Helms-Burton) considers itself to be constructive engagement, just in a realpolitik fashion. From that perspective, a legitimate interpretation of constructive engagement could be an increase in the the use of hard power; if it can be successfully argued that a hard-line approach is the only way to constructively engage this regime. I believe the purpose of constructive engagement is the end result of compromise not just engagement for the sake of engagement. If the focus in round is eventual compromise then aff. has a little ground if it becomes a T debate. I wonder if that would be persuasive to enough judges to be a worthwhile strategy.
Hi Sydne – welcome to the site.
Great links Jesus – thanks! I’ll check those out and perhaps write a post or two.
I’m with Tariq – I think running topical cps are not worth it – although I do think a solid strategy of pinning down what CE (constructive engagement) IS during the first C-X could give you some leeway to do things different and not be topical.
Any good sources so far on definitions of CE?
Great analogous source with Clinton discussing CE with China
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/10/24/clinton.china/
Great analysis on CE
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19851201faessay8458/sanford-j-ungar-peter-vale/south-africa-why-constructive-engagement-failed.html
The topic paper by Colin and Biza seems to be the best one so far that I’ve found: http://debate.uvm.edu/wprepko.html They have some dictionary definitions as well as field contexual ones.
There’s also a paper by Peter T. Coleman, et al, and that is called:
Reconstructing Ripeness: A Study of Constructive Engagement in Protracted Social Conflicts
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Can you have a legitimate debate about Cuba without discussing political philosophy or philosophy in general. What other ground can neg. really push for if neg chooses to defend status quo. I mean, the policy is still at its core anti communist.
This should be fun.