A Debater’s Research Guide To NATO’s 2022 Madrid Summit

Last week, NATO held a summit meeting in Madrid, Spain. Leaders from NATO member and partner countries gathered to “discuss important issues facing the Alliance,” “set NATO’s strategic direction for the future,” and “ensur[e] that the Alliance will continue to adapt to a changing world and keep its one billion people safe.”

For students preparing to debate the 2022-2023 high school policy topic about NATO and emerging technology, the Madrid Summit was a significant event. Some arguments that were designed before the summit no longer make sense, and many new arguments can be constructed based on evidence reacting to the summit.

In this post, I will share resources to help students more effectively understand and research the summit and its implications for the topic.

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Researching The NATO Emerging Technology Topic: Recommended Congressional Research Service Reports

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is Congress’s think tank: a policy research institute housed within the Library of Congress that produces non-partisan reports for members of Congress and their staff members.

The research produced by the CRS is extremely valuable for debaters. Their reports are an excellent source of issue briefings that can help students quickly get up to speed on a policy issue. They are also a useful source for topicality, inherency, “normal means,” and other descriptive (“factual”) evidence. Think of them like Wikipedia entries, but written for a policy audience and with more depth and details. (Not surprisingly, many CRS researchers are former debaters.)

When learning and researching a new topic, CRS is always one of the first sources I consult. I was reminded of this today when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on her Instagram story about the importance and value of CRS reports:

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A YouTube Playlist To Help Debaters Learn About Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

One month after the 2022-2023 high school policy debate topic about NATO was selected, Russia invaded Ukraine. This will have major ramifications for many of the issues students will be researching and debating this year. Even when Ukraine is not the explicit subject of a debate, it will be the elephant in the room. In order to debate the NATO topic intelligently, students will need to know a lot about Ukraine, Russia, and the war.

To help debaters get started, I have curated a YouTube playlist with a series of videos about the history of Ukraine and Russia, the geography of the war, the important military developments so far, and the competing theories about the causes of the war.

I will continue to update this playlist throughout the summer with additional videos. Have a suggestion? Post a comment or email me.

Analyzing The NATO Topic Using Justification Burdens: Strategic Considerations and An Affirmative Case Selection Checklist

In sharing David Cheshier’s 1981 article “Justification vs. The Counterplan,” I noted the continuing importance of the justification argument in contemporary debates about counterplan theory. If you haven’t yet read Cheshier’s article, I suggest doing so before continuing.

More broadly, I think the concept of the justification argument provides a valuable tool for analyzing a debate topic and generating research ideas for affirmative and negative arguments. In this post, I will use the concept of the justification argument to break down the 2022-2023 high school policy debate topic:

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its security cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in one or more of the following areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cybersecurity.

When using this method to analyze a resolution, one starts by identifying each of the affirmative’s “justification burdens” as derived from the resolution’s wording. In other words, what does the affirmative need to “justify” in order to make their prima facie case for the resolution? When making this list, it is helpful to pose the burdens as questions: has the affirmative justified the need for XYZ?

For the NATO topic, there are five main justification burdens that the affirmative must arguably meet. For each burden, I will briefly explain the issues that it raises, the negative strategies it invites, and the strategic considerations the affirmative should therefore consider when selecting and designing their cases. For simplicity’s sake, these five burdens are presented in the order that they appear in the resolution.

After identifying and discussing these burdens, I have also provided a checklist that can be used to vet affirmative case ideas. I hope that students and coaches find this helpful as they begin their summer research.

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Digging Into The Debate Theory Archives: Cheshier on Justification Arguments

Digging Into The Debate Theory Archives is a series highlighting “old” debate theory articles that are particularly thought-provoking, influential, or illuminating and that active debate students would benefit from reading.

In tracking the transition from what I called the “policy testing” paradigm of the late 1990s and 2000s to the currently predominant “hypothesis planning” paradigm that first emerged in the 2010s, I noted the importance of the view — derived originally from the hypothesis testing paradigm of the 1970s — that counterplans are merely “justification arguments,” not counter-advocacies. As described by David Zarefsky, the leading theorist of the hypothesis testing paradigm, the counterplan “is merely the justification argument in a different form.”

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Breaking Down The Final Two 2022-2023 Topic Choices: Why I Am Not Voting For The NATO Emerging Technologies Topic

With the 2022-2023 high school policy debate topic selection process nearing completion, I explained my concerns about the multilateral climate regimes topic. This time, I will share my thoughts about the other option on the final ballot: the NATO emerging technologies topic. Is it the better choice? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I’ll return to this answer at the end of the post, but first I’ll share my analysis of the NATO topic.

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Breaking Down The Final Two 2022-2023 Topic Choices: My Concerns About The Multilateral Climate Change Regimes Topic

The final round of voting for the 2022-2023 national high school policy debate topic is nearly complete. The two resolutions on the ballot are:

1. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its support of multilateral greenhouse gas emission reduction regimes.

2. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its security cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in one or more of the following areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cybersecurity.

Which one is better? I’ve had a difficult time deciding. Both have serious problems. In this post, I will explain my concerns about the climate change topic. In a subsequent post, I will do the same for the NATO topic. If you haven’t voted yet, I hope you will find these posts helpful as you deliberate over your final choice.

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An Updated List of TOC Qualifying Tournaments in Policy Debate, 1992-1993 to 2021-2022

When I was on the Tournament of Champions Policy Debate Advisory Committee in the late-2000s, I created a spreadsheet that tracked the history of TOC bid tournaments by level. At the time, I was able to compile information from 1997-1998 through 2009-2010. The spreadsheet was a useful resource for preparing or reviewing TOC bid tournament applications, and it was also helpful for anyone researching regional or national circuit participation trends.

While working on my recent post about declining participation, I decided to update this spreadsheet to include information through the current (2021-2022) season. I was also able to find information from a few older seasons. The spreadsheet — which is publicly available here (and embedded below the fold) — now includes complete information from 1992-1993 and 1994-1995 through 2021-2022; I couldn’t find information for 1993-1994 or for any seasons before 1992. If more issues of Rostrum are eventually digitized, I hope to fill in more gaps.

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National Circuit High School Policy Debate Participation is Cratering

Since the beginning of the season, it has been obvious to me that participation in high school policy debate has declined. Anecdotally, tournament fields have been noticeably smaller and fewer schools have been actively competing. I’ve been concerned about this for months, but I thought maybe it was mostly an issue with the tournaments I’ve been (virtually) attending. While some tournaments might be smaller, I hoped that others might have grown and offset the difference. Has overall participation really declined? And if so, by how much?

I decided to find out. Based on my research, the answers are “yes” and “by a lot.” Participation in policy debate has declined significantly from 2020 to 2021. And it has declined even more significantly from 2019 to 2021.

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Digging Into The Debate Theory Archives: Hingstman on Topicality and the “Division of Ground” Standard

Digging Into The Debate Theory Archives is a series highlighting “old” debate theory articles that are particularly thought-provoking, influential, or illuminating and that active debate students would benefit from reading.

Dr. David Hingstman recently retired after a long and distinguished coaching career. In this post, I will share one of my favorite of his many scholarly articles: a 1985 conference paper explaining a “division of ground” framework for understanding and debating topicality.

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