As was done for the Catholic Forensic League (CFL) national tournament, Extemp Central provides you with this topic area analysis for the International Extemp portion of next week’s NFL national tournament in Kansas City, Missouri.
In the first of our four-part series, we explore three of the thirteen topic areas at the 2010 NFL National Tournament in International Extemp.
Topic Area #10: The Middle East
Topic Area #11: Russia and Former USSR Satellite States
Topic Area #12: US Foreign Policy: The Foreign Perspective
Topic Area #13: The World Economy
Keep reading to explore these areas in further depth.
Topic Area #10: The Middle East
For all intents and purposes it appears that Turkey and Afghanistan will be in this topic area because they are not clearly included in the others. Since the Palestinians renewed their intifada against the Israelis early in the decade, the 21st century has seen the Middle East explode with violence and turmoil. Diplomatic experts fear that Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapons could set off a chain reaction that could make other powers in the region like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Syria develop their own nuclear weapons programs. The United Nations Security Council recently expressed its desire to make the Middle East a nuclear free zone, but there is scant chance of that as Israel views its nuclear weapons program as a valuable deterrent against Arab aggression. Extempers should be aware that Israel has a nuclear weapons program, a program that was constructed with the help of the French after the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956, but the Israeli government has never fully acknowledged the existence of this program. Although the Obama has expressed a desire for peace in the Middle East its efforts haven’t amounted to much as Obama’s approval ratings are low in Israel, Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem want to expand their holdings, and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu does not want to cave into pressure from Washington like it did in the 1990s. Divisions among the Palestinians, notably among Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, have aggravated the peace process and Israel’s actions against flotillas that are trying to break its blockade of Gaza are only making the situation worse. Turkey’s response to the flotilla incident and reducing its relations with Israel show that Israel is on the verge of losing a valuable Muslim ally in the region and Egyptian Muslims have never been happy with its government’s peace agreement with Israel during the Jimmy Carter administration. Aside from the Israel-Palestinian peace process which receives the most press in the region, political change in the Middle East remains a prominent concern. Iran’s actions against dissidents have provoked outrage and the Iraqi government is trying to bring itself together after elections earlier in the year. Corruption also plagues the Afghan government and if both of these governments fail it would deal a dangerous blow to democratization efforts in the Middle East. Keep in mind that when reading about the Middle East there are publications with their own biases. Sources like The Jerusalem Post will have a pro-Israeli bias while a source like The Middle East Times or The Tehran Times will be more pro-Palestinian. Al Jazeera is also a good source for covering many of the region’s affairs. Be aware that many of your judges might have misconceptions about the Middle East. Some judges have a fatalistic view of the Middle East and that the region will always be beset by religious and/or political violence. If you have ideas that are counter to this perspective you need to make sure that you demonstrate how peace is a realistic process. Remember, although a majority of people in the Middle East want peace they have different definitions of what a feasible peace would look like. Also, radical groups in the region like to disrupt peace agreements to satisfy their own goals so any solution would need to have mechanisms that could resist violence and the antagonisms of these groups in order to succeed.
Issues you may face in this round include:
- The tensions that exist between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Syria, Israel and Turkey, and Israel and Iran
- The Gaza blockade and the recent flotillas sent to break it
- What the future Iraqi government will look like
- How an Iran nuclear weapon would impact the Middle East
- How religious violence can be stopped in the Middle East and how religious extremism can be effectively combated by governments in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, etc.
- If Turkey is becoming a less secular state and how that impacts the country’s foreign policy
- How the Afghan government can effectively fight corruption
Topic Area #11: Russia and Former USSR Satellite States
For geographical purposes, I think it would be wise for them to define the parameters of this topic as Russia and its allies in the Warsaw Pact alliance. This includes the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltics, etc. If you need more information, look up an old map of the Cold War era and that will help you a great deal. The last several years has seen the Kremlin try to exercise more control over its former satellite states. Russia nearly wiped Georgia off the map two years ago and has pressured Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and other former satellite states with threats to cut off its natural gas supply. However, extempers need to understand that Russia often deals from a position of weakness and insecurity instead of from a position of strength. As Henry Kissinger made clear in his book Diplomacy, Russian rulers of the past were the opposite of German leaders in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Whereas German leaders saw the future of their nation as extending to the east, Russia believed that it needed to extend into the West and create a buffer zone from Western aggression. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and Hitler’s invasion over a century later reinforced these beliefs. The end of the Cold War was damaging for Russian psyche and Vladimir Putin has called the dissolution of the Soviet Union one of the greatest travesties in world history and penned one of my favorite quotes about the Soviet Union that extempers might want to commit to memory for this round and for future speeches: “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” Anyway, at the end of the Cold War Russia had numerous political and economic problems and the insecurity generated by these problems has made Russia adopt a firmer stance internationally to make up for its weaknesses. Democratic and economic reforms only brought corruption and pain to the Russian people and considering their distress it is no surprise that when Vladimir Putin became president in 2000 he adopted a more authoritarian bent. Although Putin controls many of the political operations in Russia today, despite being prime minister and no longer president, there are rising protests against his tactics. Despite these protests, Putin is still viewed favorably by a large number of Russians. Extempers should be aware of Russia’s START accord with the United States and plans to renew it. What they should note in their speech is that Russia likes arms limitation treaties because they cannot afford to keep up with America’s nuclear arsenal. Again, Russia is playing politics based on its position of weakness and not of strength. Furthermore, during its invasion of Georgia the Russian army’s tanks broke down and its army was not very well disciplined. Although the war was a victory for Russia, its military weaknesses were exposed to Western planners and that is something they have not forgotten. Since this topic area encompasses the Eastern European region extempers need to be observant of political factors that are at work in those nations. The economic climate has energized far-right parties in nations like the Czech Republic and Hungary and the ouster of Victor Yushenko in Ukraine’s presidential contest have led to closer relations between Ukraine and Russia. President Obama’s decision to remove missile interceptors from Poland and the Czech Republic was heavily criticized by some in the region as a signal to Moscow that America was abandoning Eastern Europe. Finally, don’t forget Russian security problems with Muslim insurgents in Chechnya and the Caucuses region. Although Russia has thought that it could buy peace in these regions or crush rebels with brute force, the suicide attack in Moscow earlier in the year showed that Russia still does not have complete security from Muslim insurgents.
Issues you may face in this round include:
- What the Khordorkovsky episode says about economic freedom in Russia
- If Putin will be Russian president again in the near future
- How Russia’s nuclear agreement with the United States will alter Russian defense priorities
- If Russia should abolish conscription
- If Ukraine is turning away from the West
- Why far-right parties are gaining in Eastern Europe and how that impacts European politics
- How Russia can reduce the threat posed by Muslim extremists in the Caucuses
Topic Area #12: US Foreign Policy: The Foreign Perspective
This is a tricky round that the NFL loves to throw at International extempers every year. Essentially, you still need to know what is going on with American foreign policy but the questions ask you to assess the impact that America’s foreign policies are having on the nations that are involved. For example, a question about Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia will ask you to weigh the impact of that policy upon Eastern Europe. Using sources like the Council on Foreign Relations can provide you with some insight into America’s foreign policy goals in the region and the impact that America’s actions might have on local populations. As Omar Qureshi suggested in last year’s topic area analysis for International extemp, take note of the places that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has traveled to recently because those will likely be issues in this round. Also, global opinion of the United States might have improved since George W. Bush but polls demonstrate that some of the goodwill that Obama initially brought into office and with his speech in Cairo, Egypt (which conservatives keep referring to as the “global apology tour”) has been lost because of America’s inability to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem to Arab’s liking. Since this round is very broad you can get a question about any nation in the world here, but most of your questions will come down to answering this question: do America’s allies/friends view America as being in a position of strength or weakness? If the answer is strength they are more likely to side with America and do our bidding but if they see us in a position of weakness they might be more willing to strike out. This is the impact you will need for a speech in this round and honestly it varies from nation to nation. Nations like Colombia value U.S. protection and see us a way to keep Hugo Chavez at bay in the region. However, nations like North Korea, Iran, and China likely view the U.S. as negotiating from a position of weakness because of its economic recession and overstretched military position. As you close up your research for nationals, it would be wise to scour the international press or do a quick online search for any mention of the United States in these publications. You would be surprised by some of the opinion-editorial pieces that you might come across that express favor and/or disfavor with the United States.
Issues that you may face in this round include:
- Why the Japanese people would like to see the U.S. leave Okinawa
- Why the Middle East is losing faith in President Obama
- Why Obama’s favorability ratings are low among Israelis
- How China interprets American foreign policy and how it influences their actions
- If South Korea and/or Japan find the U.S. to be a trusted ally
- The future of America’s special relationship with Great Britain under David Cameron
- How much the U.S. should help Greece in dealing with its economic problems
Topic Area #13: The World Economy
The one aspect of International extemp that is harder than United States extemp is how extempers are forced to confront economic issues. In almost every previous topic area extempers could confront an economic question about a specific nation. In this topic area, extempers will need to talk about the health of the entire global economy which is no easy task. However, there are some resources that extempers can use for this round without becoming swamped. First, if you still have The Economist’s “The World in 2010” publication you will notice that there are some economic predictions in that piece near the end of the magazine. Second, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) publish reports on the health of the global economy and provide predictions for the health of the global economy in future sectors. With the global downturn, many economies that were open to free trade have begun to shut themselves in and the United States, with a Democrat dominated Congress, is less open to free trade deals than it was under the Bush administration. Extempers will hit a few questions in this round where they will have to weigh whether free trade has benefited or hurt nations around the globe. Also, the credit crunch that is affecting the globe from Europe to Japan to the United States will have major impacts on government spending patterns. With more fiscal discipline, countries might gain more control over their economic standing and might be less willing to lend to prolifigate governments in the future. As with all economic questions, extempers will need to have boatloads of statistics to support them as well as any economic theories that are applicable (David Ricardo’s ideas of comparative advantage and his discussions about outsourcing are worth a look for this topic area) but they need to be able to explain to their audience what these statistics mean. I have seen many speeches were extempers recite statistics after statistic but they don’t tell me what I’m supposed to know after that statistic has been cited. If you don’t do this your audience is going to be confused and you are going to be punished by the rank that you get in the round. Remember, what you get across is just as important as what you say.
Issues you may face in this round include:
- Predicting the future of the global economy (growth or more recession)
- If a global bank tax would be a good idea for the global economy
- The impact of governments reining in spending on the global economy
- If free or fair trade is best for the global economy
- How the international community can improve labor standards
- What steps need to be taken to make the Doha trade round succeed
- The impact of America’s economic recession on global markets