The high school debate topic for the 1998-1999 school year poses the question of how the United States should change its foreign policy toward Russia. Although debate

1998-1999 school year poses the question of how the United States should change its foreign policy toward Russia. Although debate about foreign policy has been relegated to a back-seat compared to domestic issues by the American public, the academic community in international relations (IR) has been energized by the end of the Cold War. The Russia topic will provide a challenging opportunity for debaters, coaches, and judges to analyze alternative theories of international relations. The two purposes of this article are to provide a brief introduction to Critical International Relations Theories (CT), and secondly, to suggest how debaters could incorporate this exciting, but controversial field of IR into pragmatic debates about US foreign policy.