Durability and Fiat Questions on Jan/Feb 2020

Introduction

Durable fiat is a complicated and poorly defined term in Lincoln Douglas debate. However, it generally is understood to mean that whatever the affirmative fiats will not or cannot be simply overturned or rolled back by existing political actors. For example, if on the handgun topic from 2016, the affirmative read a plan federally banning handguns via a mandatory buyback, the negative couldn’t read a solvency deficit saying that Trump or the Supreme Court would veto or overturn it. The affirmative gets to fiat the plan happens and that it isn’t overturned/repealed/struck down etc.…. or do they? And if they do, how does that complicate the topic of banning nuclear weapons?

Fiat vs Implementation

One of the most common distinctions drawn by judges/debaters on durable fiat is the difference between fiat and implementation. Returning to our earlier handguns example, while the affirmative may fiat the plan passes and remains in place, they can’t fiat that it is implemented flawlessly or that everyone complies with the buyback. On the nuclear weapons topic implementation seems to be pretty binary. Either the United States does or does not eliminate its nuclear arsenal, and there’s no private third party that must comply with the elimination.

However, there is an interesting question tangentially related to implementation given the multi-actor nature of the topic. Does the affirmative get to fiat that every nuclear state finishes de-nuclearization at the same time? Or just simply that each country begins the process of de-nuclearizing in good faith? Or put another way, can the negative read arguments that say the process of de-nuclearizing will lead to a conflict before states have fully de-nuclearized and thus has the chance of going nuclear?

Durable Fiat and States Re-Arming

Another related question is whether or not states can re-arm in either the near or distant future. I think for current nuclear power states this answer is obviously no. However, a separate question is whether a state that currently does not possess a nuclear arsenal, such as Norway or Kenya, would be able to develop nuclear weapons in the future. One could argue that, on a technical level, since these states had no nuclear arsenal to eliminate when the affirmative was fiated, that they could develop new nuclear weapons in the future world of the aff. This, while possibly correct on a technical or semantic level, should not be allowed for topic education and fairness reasons. But, heck, if you want to read the Norway Gets Nukes in 2050 DA you can give it a shot.

Multi-actor Fiat

Speaking of multi-actor fiat, this raises another major question with this topic. Generally, it’s understood that allowing multi-actor opens the door for all sorts of potential abuse in round, from both the affirmative and negative. However, this topic seems to leave little room for anything other than multi-actor plans. The only two ways to avoid using multi-actor fiat are plans that either specify only a single country (i.e. North Korea should eliminate their nukes) or specify some sort of super-state actor (i.e. the U.N. should eliminate nuclear weapons). The former seems to incur other forms of abuse, while the latter seems simply to run into implementation and authority problems. This creates potential problems on the negative assuming reciprocal fiat.

Reciprocal Neg Fiat

Another question that stems from this is what the negative is allowed to fiat. Generally, the negative is granted whatever fiat powers the affirmative has. If the affirmative is allowed to use multi-actor fiat, then the negative should be as well – pretty straightforward. However, on this topic it creates a lot of complicated scenarios and potentially ridiculous counterplans. For example, the negative could read a counterplan that says all countries maintain, but never use their nuclear weapons. Under ordinary circumstances, this would seem obviously outside the grounds of reasonable fiat due to its multi-actor nature (among other reasons). However, if the affirmative is fiat-ing that all nuclear-armed states abolish their nuclear weapons peacefully, is the counterplan really using a level of fiat different than the affirmative? A more common question around negative fiat is the use of popular counterplans such as No First Use. Does the negative reading that counterplan imply that they fiat that countries will actually do it? Or can the affirmative make arguments that under pressure leaders will crack and use nukes anyway?

I think in the end the negative should get access to reciprocal fiat. I think it’s an important both for reciprocity as it relates to fairness, and to policymaking as it relates to education. I think the more logical conclusion then, is for the affirmative to recognize the limits of their own fiat, and to write and plan their affirmatives strategically in that context, rather than to hand their opponent a “magic wand” of fiat with more power than they’re prepared to answer.

The Takeaway

I think this article is more a warning to affirmatives and strategy guide for negatives. While on the negative, I think debaters should use cross-ex to push the affirmative to set-up some clarity or limitations on what exactly they fiat and what strength/powers of fiat they claim. This puts the affirmative in a troubling scenario. If they claim very strong powers of fiat, they give the negative access (assuming reciprocal fiat) to powerful counterplans such as No First Use or the India-Pakistan Peace Treaty Counterplan. If they claim weak powers of fiat in order to avoid these counterplans, they open themselves up to arguments surrounding the stability of de-nuclearization or states re-arming in the future. Affirmative debaters should carefully think out their conceptions of fiat and make sure they don’t get caught in these traps. Two other strategies that help the affirmative avoid these issues are claiming strong fiat powers but pre-emptively arguing against reciprocity for fiat or reading an affirmative (such as virtual nuclear arsenals) that isn’t easily answered by re-arming or stability arguments.