"Enhance"

[William Mosley-Jensen]

Sitting in Dallas at the NSDA tournament, Collin Roark and I have needed something to do, so we decided to investigate the term "enhance." I have attached some work we did, in the hopes that it will spark some dialogue. Some interesting things seem to pop up after doing a little research on it...

1.) Enhance allows affs to engage in a variety of non-increase strategies. Those can include joint exercises, intel gathering, etc. There are lots of contextual examples of affirmatives out there, it is unclear what the negs might look like.

2.) Enhance is an indirect relationship. I.E. there is the thing that is "enhanced" and a thing that is "enhancing."

Anyone have other thoughts on "enhance"?

[tcram]

You and Mr. Roark's work does point to "enhance" being a very broad term, especially because it is a word that suggests the quality of an outcome (rather than a numerical change, like decrease). Such breadth is not automatically troubling; a host of inclusive definitions that suggest a host of possible mechanisms suggests there are lots of paths for aff creativity. That creativity can be good, but is best if held in check by a viable T argument with high quality evidence. However, it seems based on this work that 'enhance' is not a term that means much of anything in military literature, making me wonder whether such evidence as seen on past topics like Constructive Engagement is likely to be found.  In my mind, T debates are always best when the core definitions are subject to debate in the literature.  It helps to keep T debates from sounding like this:

 

For some reason, all roads keep coming back to Dilbert on this topic...

[CouldaBeenaContenda]

Back in 1970, Brown University had a debater who liked to say his plan, "...enhances the chances..." of whatever result it was supposed to bring about.  Sort of a fuzzy solvency claim.  It had a nice ring to it, a nice rhythm, but it didn't help him win much.