My partner and I affirm the resolution:

CX - Maritime Routes

Scripted:
Cartels are stronger than ever. Subsequently violence is also high.
Stott 24: Writes that Mexico’s organized crime problem has worsened
dramatically. Cartels have expanded and control a third of the country. Mexico is
becoming a failed state.

Without action cartels do create a failed state.

Carelle 23: Three years from now, cartels will be more powerful than the Mexican
state itself. Cartel revenue has gone up 14 fold in just the last couple of years.

This is important because a failed state leads to great power intervention, turned
nuclear.

Lindsey 13: Latin American instability will provide opportunities for US rivals to
threaten US security. Great Power Intervention: Beijing And Moscow would
establish bases in Latin America. Intervention would lead to a direct
confrontation between the nuclear powers.

The impact is Mass Extinction.

Sarg 15: A nuclear strike will lead to a loss of the Earth’s atmosphere as a result
of tornadoes caused by the nuclear explosions. The earth will become a dead
planet.

Judge fear not, because Aff has solvency. Maritime action is key.

Sadler 23: Cutting all maritime smuggling routes is the best way to defeat the
cartels. cartels rely on sea routes to move 90 percent of their drugs. officials are
only interdicting 10 percent of this illicit trade.

And maritime surveillance infrastructure solves: Naval simulations prove this.

Duffie 23: AI detection software enables U.S. military and law enforcement to stop
drug runners in the maritime domain and helps dismantle criminal organizations.

This is crucial because Drug trafficking is the most profitable for cartels, and if
we can take this away, cartels will crumble.

Robelo 13: Diversified activities are considerably less profitable for cartels. Judge
this matters because as we explain, if cartels are weakened, the great powers
won’t intervene sparing the world from nuclear war, and human extinction. Vote
AFF to spare every living organism on earth from extinction.

Carded:
Cartels are stronger than ever. Subsequently violence is also high.

Stott 24:
(Michael Stott and Christine Murray in Mexico City, Stott is the Latin America editor of the Financial Times and Murray is the Financial Times' Mexico and Central America
correspondent, May-21-2024, “Mexico’s Drug Cartels are Thriving,” Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/fe04c6ed-73f8-4e17-852b-ce16fd6c3515 ) / rh

But Mexico’s organized crime problem has worsened dramatically during the five and a half years of populist
leftwinger Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency, security experts say, and has become so serious that it threatens the country’s future. Polls show that security is a top
voter concern ahead of the presidential election on June 2. For more than a decade, the dominant drug groups have been fragmenting, generating a host of smaller splinter
gangs who fight over turf. Today, the two largest and most powerful cartels, the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), are jostling with smaller rivals such

as the Viagras, the Squirrels and the Scorpions. Many of the cartels have expanded into lucrative new businesses. In a 2024 report, the US Drug
Enforcement Administration called the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels “transnational criminal organisations” because they are “involved in arms trafficking, money laundering,

migrant smuggling, sex trafficking, bribery, extortion, and a host of other crimes”. The cartels control more territory than ever before, about a third of the
country according to one estimate from the US military. “There’s been an exponential deterioration,” says Manuel Clouthier, a former state deputy and businessman in
the northwestern state of Sinaloa, which is home to the eponymous drug cartel. “Mexico is becoming a failed state.” As the cartels’ economic
power has grown, so has their international reach. Mexico’s two top cartels now run a network of illegal activities stretching across South America that is challenging
governments and alarming citizens. Battles between local affiliates of the CJNG and the Sinaloa cartel have turned previously peaceful Ecuador into one of the world’s most
violent countries. The cartels source chemicals needed to make synthetic drugs such as fentanyl from China and India and have strong connections to European mafia such as
the Italian ’Ndrangheta, investigators say. Anne Milgram, head of the DEA, told a US Senate committee in February last year that “the Jalisco cartel has influence through
associates, facilitators and brokers on every continent except Antarctica”. Experts point out that the murder figures do not include the record number of people reported as
missing, almost 115,000 by last year, 43,000 of whom disappeared during López Obrador’s presidency. They also note that the proportion of “crimes against life” reported as
manslaughter or “other crimes” has been rising as murders fall, suggesting homicides are being reclassified.
owed criminals to continue “getting a much stronger, much more direct and much more aggressive foothold within institutions”.

Without action, cartels create a failed state.

Caralle 23:
(Katelyn Caralle, 7-2-2023, Sen. Vance backs DeSantis' proposal to use deadly force at the border, Mail Online,
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12256121/Pro-Trump-Ohio-Sen-JD-Vance-backs-Ron-DeSantis-proposal-use-deadly-force-border.html Recut //MVSG (the bracketing

is from the original source)

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said he wants to see military force used against drug cartels at the southern border as fentanyl continues to flow in the U.S. It comes the same week the
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed the use of 'deadly force' against drudge cartels and smugglers – but Vance's office told DailyMail.com that the comments are not
connected. The massive spike in fentanyl overdoses and deaths in recent years is not only an issue that hits close to home with Vance’s constituents, but also his own family, a
spokesperson for the senator said when noting that his comments were pre-recorded on June 22 – four days before DeSantis' remarks. Vance has long called for more forceful
action at the border and is supporting former President Donald Trump's third White House bid. The pro-Trump senator said during an interview with NBC's Meet the Press on
Sunday morning that he would want to 'empower' the president, whoever that may be, to use the U.S. military to target drug cartels and smugglers at the southern border. 'You

three years from now when the Mexicandrug cartels are more powerful
think the fentanyl problem is bad now, what about

than the Mexican state itself?' Vance questioned when speaking with host Chuck Todd. Presidential hopeful DeSantis said Monday while unveiling
his proposal to tackle the southern border crisis from Eagle Pass, Texas that he would use 'deadly force' to combat the flow of drugs into the U.S. from Mexico. DeSantis has
repeatedly taken aim at former President Donald Trump for failing to deliver on promises he made while campaigning when he got into office – like constructing a wall along the
entire southern border. 'I would empower the President of the United States – whether that's a Republican or a Democrat – to use the power of the U.S. Military to go after these

drug cartels,' he said. He also warned that if the drug crisis continued on the current track, Mexico could become a 'failed state' - like what happened in Colombia. Cartel
revenue per year has gone up 14 fold just in the last couple of years,' Vance said. 'That shows you, I think,
what bad border policies can do.' 'The Mexican government is being, in a lot of ways, destabilized by the constant flow of fentanyl.' DeSantis said Monday that the best way to
deter cartels is by taking down coyotes and smugglers and making it clear they will be met with force from border enforcement if they break U.S. laws. 'If you drop a couple of
these cartel operatives, they'll stop coming,' DeSantis said at a press conference in front of the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas last week.

This is important because a failed state leads to great power intervention, turned
nuclear.

Lindsey 13:
(Lindsey E, 2013, Century S. ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH HEMISPHERIC DEFENSE in the 21.
https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/Hemispheric-Defense-in-the-21st-Century.pdf //JN

Latin
As the previous chapter demonstrates, for the past two hundred years the principal cause of concern for U.S. defense policymakers and planners thinking about

America has been the prospect that great powers outside the Western Hemisphere could exploit the military weakness and internal security challenges of the states
within it to threaten U.S. security. While there is reason for optimism about the future of Latin America,58 there is also cause for concern. The region faces enduring obstacles to
economic59 and political development60 as well as significant internal security challenges. As General John Kelly, the commander of U.S. Southern Command
(SOUTHCOM)61 noted in his March 2013 posture statement before Congress, Latin America: It is a region of enormous promise and exciting opportunities, but it is also one of
persistent challenges and complex threats. It is a region of relative peace, low likelihood of interstate conflicts, and overall economic growth, yet is also home to corrosive

instability and non-traditional security challenges that

criminal violence, permissive environments for illicit activities, and episodic political and social protests.62 The

General Kelly cites provide potential opportunities for theUnited States’ major rivals to (borrowing a term from Monroe’s declaration)

“interpose” themselves into the region and, by so doing,threaten regional stability and U.S. security. Two discernible trends suggest that current and
prospective Eurasian rivals could seek to exploit regional conditions and dynamics in ways that could impose immense costs on the United States and divertits attention from

more distant theaters overseas.The first trend is a return to a heightened level of competition among the “great powers” following two decades of U.S.

dominance. The second trend concerns the growing cost of projecting power by traditional military means due to the proliferation of “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) capabilities in general, and precision-guided munitions (PGMs) in particular. These trends suggest that, despite a possible decline in relative U.S. power, external forces will continue to nd it beyond their means to threaten the hemisphere through traditional forms of power projection. Far more likely is a

o tThis is not to say that

return of a competition similar t Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran would eschew future opportunities to establish bases in Latin
America.. As in the past, such bases can support efforts to accomplish several important objectives. They can, for example, further insulate a Latin American regime
from the threat of direct U.S. military intervention, sinceWashington would have to account for the possibility that the conflict would lead to a direct

confrontation with a more capable and potentially nuclear-armed powers .100Basesin the hemisphere can also enable external powers to
conduct military assistance activities, such as training, more easily.Electronic surveillance of the United States and Latin American states could be accomplished more cheaply
and effectively from forward positions. Finally, certain kinds of military capabilities,such as long-range ballistic missiles and attack submarines, could be probably stationed in
Latin America by powers external to that region, particularly if they intended to create the option of initiating conflict at some future date. These reasons, among others, have
made preventing an extra-hemispheric power from establishing bases in Latin America an enduring U.S. priority. Players in a Latin American Great Game Given current
trends,several powers external to the region may, either now or over the coming decade, have both the motive and the means to employ both state and non-state proxiesin
Latin American to achieve their interests. Principal among them is Iran, which is already engaged in supporting proxies against the United States and its partners in the Middle
East and has long been developing proxies in Latin America. Additionally, there are reasons to think that China and Russia may be interested in cultivating and supporting Latin
American proxies as well.

The impact is Mass Extinction.

Sarg 15:
(Dr. Stoyan Sarg, PhD Physics, Director of the Physics Research Department at the World Institute for Scientific Exploration, 9-10-2015 “The Unknown Danger of Nuclear
Apocalypse,”
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/10/09/the-unknown-danger-of-nuclear-apocalypse/ ) / rh
With the new NATO plan for installation of nuclear tactical weapons in Europe, nuclear missiles may reach Moscow in only 6 minutes, and the opposite case is also possible in
the same time. The question is: how can we be sure that this will not be triggered by a human error or computer malfunction. An adequate reaction dictated by the dilemma “to

be or not to be” and the concept of preventive nuclear strike may lead to a nuclear consequence that is difficult to stop. At the present level of distributed controlled
systems and military global navigations, this will lead to unstoppable global nuclear war. However, there is something not predicted, of which the military strategists,
politicians and powerful forces are not aware. Probably, it will not be a nuclear winter that they hope to survive in their underground facilities. The most probable consequence

will be a partial loss of the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of one or many powerful simultaneous tornadoes
caused by the nuclear explosions. In a tornado, a powerful anti gravitational effect takes
place. The official science does not have an adequate explanation for this feature due to an incorrect concept about space. The antigravitational effect is not a result of the
circling air. It is a specific physical effect in the aether space that is dismissed in physics as it is currently taught. Therefore, the effective height of this effect is not limited to the
height of the atmosphere. Then in the case of many simultaneous powerful tornadoes, an effect of suction of the earth atmosphere into space might take place. Such events are
observed on the Sun and the present physical science does not have an explanation for them. The antigravitational effect is accompanied by specific electric and magnetic
fields with a twisted shape. This is observed in tornado events on the Sun. Some effects in the upper Earth atmosphere known as sprites have a similar combination of electrical
and magnetic fields but in a weaker form. They are also a mystery for contemporary physical science. At the time of atmospheric nuclear tests, made in the last century, a
number of induced tornadoes are observed near the nuclear mushroom as shown in Figure 1. The strongest antigravitational effect, however, occurs in the central column of the
formed nuclear mushroom. The analysis of underwater nuclear tests also indicates a strong antigravitational effect. It causes a rise of a vertical column of water. In the test
shown in Figure 2, the vertical column contains millions tons of water. Thermonuclear bombs are multiple times more powerful. The largest thermonuclear bomb of the former
Soviet Union tested in 1961 is 50 megatons. It is 3,300 times more powerful than the bomb dropped by USA on Hiroshima at the second world war and may kill millions. It is

known that Mars once had liquid water and consequently an atmosphere that has mysteriously disappeared. If the scenario described above takes place, the Earth
will become a dead planet like Mars. The powerful politicians, military adventurers and their financial supporters must be aware that even the most
secured underground facility will not save them if a global nuclear conflict is triggered. Their disgraced end will be more miserable than the deaths of the billions of innocent
human beings, including the animal world.

Judge fear not, because Aff has solvency

Maritime action is key.

Sadler 23:
(Brent Sadler is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for National Defense) The National Interest, 12/11/2023, “Battling the Cartels Requires A Refocus:

Cutting all maritime smuggling routes is the best way to defeat the cartels, their Chinese enablers, and
the Fentanyl overdose epidemic.” https://nationalinterest.org/feature/battling-cartels-requires-refocus-207866 //jjoy Hitting the cartels’ bottom line will require intercepting both

shipments of cocaine and the precursor chemicals needed for fentanyl production. Critically, the cartels rely on several sea routes to move
90 percent of their drugs. The most important sea routes cross the Pacific with precursor chemicals from China and
cocaine from South America to intermediary stops before moving into the United States or via Europe’s most porous border in
French Guiana. Smugglers are attracted to French Guiana since, once inside, they can use local drug mules to access direct flights
to Europe with fewer customs and immigration restraints. Established in 1989, the Joint Interagency Task Force South has had
measured success interdicting this illicit trade. However, it has not been able to deliver a knockout blow to the cartels. Today,
officials assert they are, on average, only interdicting approximately 10 percent of this illicit trade, given too few Coast
Guard cutters and patrol aircraft at their disposal. By integrating multiple U.S. agencies, JIATF-S has leveraged twenty-one regional partners’ maritime policing capacities with
timely intelligence sharing. This has made a meaningful but not a mortal impact on the cartels. The collaboration has resulted in almost 80 percent of JIATF-S’ drug seizures
being executed by regional partner nations. But sadly, this impacts only a fraction of the cartels’ overall bottom line. Last year, JIATF-S enabled the capture of over $7 billion
worth of narcotics. This is good but not good enough, given the global trade in narcotics was estimated at over $652 billion in 2017. In 2020, it’s estimated that almost 2,000 tons
of undiluted cocaine were produced. If well placed, a single Coast Guard cutter on station can take fifty tons of narcotics out of supply. Still, this is not good enough, making
greater partner nations’ active support critical moving forward. Securing Americans from the scourge of illegal drugs will mean actually putting the cartels out of business. Doing
this will require cutting the cartels’ critical narcotics maritime trade routes—not only south-to-north routes to North America but also the other routes that keep them in business.
In the past, cartel transit routes have adapted as interdiction grew more effective in the Caribbean, with cocaine smugglers shifting to transit routes via West Africa to Europe.
Importantly, in recent years, the cartels have expanded their European operations, making it a significant part of their bottom line. Unfortunately, the establishing legislation for
JIATF-S focuses only on routes from Latin America to the United States. This has prevented broader interdiction on a scale that would seriously threaten the cartels’ bottom line.
Fixing this will require reframing the current mandate of JIATF-S to focus on cutting all the sea routes on which the cartels rely. An unholy alliance between the cartels and
Chinese chemical suppliers is delivering massive profits to crime syndicates on both sides of the Pacific. As in Europe and Africa, increased criminality is weakening Latin
American governments that are being exploited by the cartels and the Chinese criminal gangs—notably the Bang Group. This is already apparent as Venezuela slides deeper
into criminality and active support of the drug trade while China courts a weakened Maduro government. The bottom line is that China benefits by operating on both sides of the
narcotics trade: Chinese criminal gangs generate income and influence while weakening local governments. Those weakened governments then turn to China for policing
assistance to fight the very crime their crime gangs are spreading—see, for example, the experience of the Republic of Palau. Exposure of China’s hand in these nefarious
networks is needed but too seldom seen. On a rare occasion this October, the Justice Department announced indictments against eight Chinese companies and twelve Chinese
nationals involved in illegally shipping fentanyl precursor chemicals to the United States. That said, the scope of illicit Chinese activity in the Western Hemisphere is likely higher
than publicly reported, and the sooner China held to account to begin meaningfully curtailing this trade, the better. The critical issue is that focusing on only cocaine and fentanyl
headed to the United States will not be enough to destroy the cartels behind the illicit narcotics trade. To up the pain on the cartels, JIATF-S needs more cutters and aircraft to
halt this illegal trade. Doing this better and more comprehensively targets the cartels’ business model. Cutting off their access to sea routes will squeeze their bottom line where
they are most exposed. A comprehensive approach building on the success of JIATF-S with additional platforms and authorities can finally and mortally smash the cartels.

And maritime surveillance infrastructure solves: Naval simulations prove

this.

Duffie 23:
(Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.) Office of Naval Research, 08/21/2023, “‘SCOUT-ing’ for Solutions: Naval Exercise Seeks to
Improve Maritime Drug Interdiction”
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3499461/scout-ing-for-solutions-naval-exercise-seeks-to-improve-maritime-drug-interdict/ //jjoy / recut rh
Compiled using sophisticated artificial intelligence and machine-learning systems — combined with advanced detection and tracking
software — the images, along with other sensor systems, enabled U.S. military and law enforcement to deploy maritime
assets to stop the drug runners from delivering their illegal goods. The scenario was part of a larger July 2023 experimentation event designed to emulate

drug-smuggling activities in the maritime domain as well as efforts to deter the flow of such contraband. Called the SCOUT Main Experimentation Event,
the two-week exercise involved partners such as the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-South (JIATF-S), U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM),
and numerous naval warfare centers and industry and academic partners. Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus, who was one of several ONR leaders at the
maritime operations center, said, “I’m truly impressed by the innovation, teaming and analytic rigor you’ve all brought to this exercise. Your pioneering approach is leading the
way for us to learn faster with new partners to tackle the hardest operational challenges.” ONR SCOUT is an ongoing, multiagency campaign to identify new ways to collaborate
with industry and academia to bring novel capabilities to warfighter challenges, experiment with them in realistic operating conditions and operationalize them in partnership with
the fleet and force. Since being established 18 months ago, SCOUT has worked with JIATF-S, SOUTHCOM and partner naval forces to leverage all-domain technologies and
unmanned capabilities to detect, track and target illicit drug trafficking in the maritime environments. This facilitates interdiction and apprehension to reduce the flow of drugs into

and helps degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organizations. The July 2023 Main
the U.S. and partner nations,
Experimentation Event built on lessons learned from previous SCOUT sprint exercises (scenario-based demonstrations of
technology capabilities and characteristics), warfighter-driven challenges and design-thinking workshops. It also incorporated
aspects of the four primary problem areas outlined by SCOUT since its inception, including: Deploying algorithms that enable
operators to manage and exploit overwhelming amounts of diverse data, for improving accuracy in assessing threats. Improving
capabilities to detect and monitor suspect vehicles, across wider areas and over longer detection intervals. Integrating promising
new software into the JIATF-S operations center, in order to use air and maritime assets more effectively in counter-narcotics
operations. Delivering JIATF-S capabilities that can enhance operations, mobility and tactical flexibility, in a cost-effective manner.
Last month’s large-scale event involved two dozen participants from organizations within the Department of Defense, U.S. Navy,
U.S. Coast Guard, and industry and academic partners. The coverage area stretched from the Bahamas to the mid-Atlantic Ocean
region along the U.S. East Coast. The total coverage area exceeded 100,000 square miles — larger than the five Great Lakes
combined in terms of surface area. “The
goal was to integrate different types of prototype technologies
together, from all-domain sensor systems to artificial intelligence, and see how their
performance was affected in an operationally relevant environment using realistic smuggling
behaviors,” said Shane Stein, the ONR program officer overseeing the event. “This enabled us to stress-test various systems
and strategies under real-world conditions to see if they could solve identified naval problems, and potentially be applied across the
fleet and force in the future.” Participants
deployed diverse manned and unmanned technologies,
including prototypes still in development. These included crewed maritime patrol aircrafts,
crewed ships, unmanned underwater vehicles and small boats, sensor buoy systems and
commercial satellites. Many of the assets were controlled remotely from locations in Virginia, Maryland, California and
Florida. The participants were divided into two teams: Blue (representing U.S. military and law enforcement) and Red (representing
a drug cartel). They engaged in numerous unscripted “cat-and-mouse” encounters during the event that replicated narcotics
smuggling and counter-illicit trafficking operations. Now that the event is over, SCOUT and its partners are reviewing the
accumulated data to see how it could be used to strengthen the mission capabilities of JIATF-S and SOUTHCOM.

Neuhard 18: (Cross)

(Ryan Neuhard, 03-20-2018, "Submarine Detection and the Future of the U.S. Fleet", Georgetown Security Studies Review,
https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2018/03/30/submarine-detection-and-the-future-of-the-u -s-fleet/ ] // adam west
The development of robotics, seabed infrastructure, and underwater communications are now providing opportunities to integrate these capabilities into large detection

unmanned underwater vehicles, fixed seabed and buoy

networks. These networks can incorporate mobile

sensors, and potentially independent commercial infrastructure, like sensors monitoring fish
stocks.[[v]] Real-time underwater communication systems can then exchange information
between these sensors to pinpoint submarines and alert anti-submarine forces.

This is crucial because Drug trafficking is the most profitable for cartels, and if
we can take this away, cartels will crumble.

Robelo-13:
[Daniel Robelo, 2013, Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in Latin America, No Publication,
https://www.academia.edu/74418447/Demand_Reduction_or_Redirection_Channeling_Illicit_Drug_Demand_towards_a_Regulated_Supply_to_Diminish_Violence_in_Latin_Am
erica?uc-g-sw=95955880, 8-9-2024 //recut tristanM + leon / recut rh
B. Levels of Violence It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a short-term increase in violence is possible (as
competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the longer term will decline.106 Some analysts point out that organized crime may further

diversified into other activities, such as extortion and kidnapping, though these have been shown to be considerably less
profitable than drug trafficking. As one scholar notes, given the profitability of the drug trade, “it would take roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal
10% of cocaine revenues from the U.S.107 While the American mafia certainly diversified into other criminal endeavors after the Repeal of alcohol Prohibition, homicide rates
nevertheless declined dramatically.108 Combining marihuana regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow to
the corrosive economic power of violent trafficking organizations, diminishing their ability to perpetrate murder, hire recruits, purchase weapons, corrupt officials, operate with
impunity, and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete results—potentially significant reductions in DTO revenues—unlike all other strategies that
Mexico or the United States have tried to date.109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other activities for their income, but they would be left weaker and less of a threat to
security. Furthermore, the United States and Latin American governments would save resources currently wasted on prohibition enforcement and generate new revenues in
taxes—resources which could be applied more effectively towards confronting violence and other crimes that directly threaten public safety.

Judge this matters because as we explain, if cartels are weakened, the great powers
won’t intervene sparing the world from nuclear war, and human extinction.

Vote AFF to spare every living organism on earth from extinction.