1NCInterpretation– affs must defend hypothetical enactment of a United Statesfederal government policy that substantially reduces alliance commitmentswith Japan, the Republic of Korea, North Atlantic Treaty Organizationmember states, and/or the Republic of the Philippines.USFG is the three branchesUS Legal[United States Federal Government Law and Legal Definition. -government/]TheUnitedStatesFederalGovernmentisestablished by theUSConstitution. The Federal Government sharessovereignty over the United Sates with the individual governments of the States of US. The Federal governmenthas threebranches: i)thelegislature, which is the US Congress, ii)Executive, comprised of the President and Vice president of theUSandiii)Judiciary. The US Constitution prescribes a system of separation of powers and ‘checks and balances’ for the smoothfunctioning of all the three branches of the Federal Government. The US Constitution limits the powers of the FederalGovernment to the powers assigned to it;all powers not expressly assigned to the Federal Governmentarereserved to theStates orto thepeople.“Defense pacts” are only commitments for military action in response todirect attackon sovereignty or territorial integrity --- everything elseis anoffense pactLeeds 5[Brett Ashley Leeds, Department of Political Science, Rice University. Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions(ATOP) Codebook. 2005. ]Defense pacts, offense pacts, anddefense/offense pacts (as we call agreements that include bothobligations simultaneously) allobligate an alliancemember to provideactive military supportto an ally.Defensecommitmentsarepromisestoassistan allymilitarilyintheevent ofattackonthe ally’ssovereigntyorterritorial integrity.Anypromiseof active military support under conditionsnot directlyin response to an attack on an ally’ssovereigntyorterritorial integrityis coded as anoffense commitment. Thus,any timethatallies commit to engage in coordinated military actionoutsidetheterritoryof anyalliance memberand in theabsence of a direct attack, they have formed anoffense pact,regardlessofwhethertheirintentionsare to maintain or revise the status quo. Leeds (2003: 432-433) and Leeds et al. (2002: 241) provide examples oflanguage from alliance agreements characteristic of defense pacts, offense pacts, and defense/offense pacts.First – Scenario analysis rootedin international relationsis necessary –focus on predictingand managingfuture events requires re-examiningcurrent biases and comparingmultiple variablesand desires, which drivescreative problem solving. That’s the only wayto create change inSus and Hadeed 20[Monika Sus, Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies at theEuropean University Institute, Marcel Hadeed, Research Associate at Dahrendorf Forum, "Theory-infused and policy-relevant: On
