Gwendolyn Scott

Professor Thorpe
POL S 202
Debate Closing Statement
The United States is currently involved in seven mutual defense treaties, with countries
all over the world including those in South and Central America, Asia, Oceania, and Europe. In
this sense if we lower our military spending then we would not only be putting our own country
and population at risk it would also be putting 69 countries and around a quarter of the worlds
population at risk too. These treaties actually prevent us from going to war by the use of
hegemony; by carrying our big stick through all of these countries we actually discourage
possible enemies from attacking those countries and the United States because of all the backup
we have around the world. However this means that we must have a large army to be our stick.
And we certainly have it, in the United States, there are 2,280,875 people employed by
the military (including the reserve forces), now Im not even talking about the enormous
economic impact that these people would face if we reduced the military, Im talking about the
1.8 billion people that are protected around the world by them. Think about that, 2 million
Americans are protecting the lives of 1.8 billion people. These people rely on us to be the worlds
policemen, without us the world could easily and quickly fall into disarray, more than it already
has. In the aftermath of the second World War Winston Churchill was quoted as saying, never
was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the
previous struggle. World War Two cost the lives of over 60 million people (50 million were
civilians), are we really willing to risk deaths at that scale by repeating our mistakes made in the
last world war? Are we willing to stand idly by and watch as innocents are killed all around the
world by acts of terrorism? We must learn from our historical mistakes, especially when it comes
to the lives of so many people, and in this case history has told us that we must never rest when
presented with threats anywhere in the world, because even if they seem distant, or not our
problem, they can easily begin to affect the people we love and the country we support.
To be very clear Im not promoting throwing our soldiers into every single combat
situation possible, but just having bases in countries and showing the world that we are actually
there for every country we have sworn to protect, will be enough to stop most opponent groups
from attacking and create a sense of security around the world. We will attack forces if we have

to, we will stomp out any conflicts we need to, that is part of the job description, but we will not
go to war for no reason, we will protect and be ready for any action necessary. The United States
is the worlds policemen, and a neighborhood as big as the world we live in cannot be safe
without a strong and centralized police force. The United States is not only at the perfect military
and economic level to be policemen, we also have a moral obligation to do this, because as a
country we are sworn to promote democracy around the world. The State Departments Foreign
Policy Agenda reads that their goal is "to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and
prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community." Who
else, if not us, will have the moral, financial, and sheer man power to triumph over the conflicts
we face today?
As a closing I would like you all to think about the women and men who have died at the
hands of terrorism this year, those in Paris, Beirut, San Bernardino, Nigeria, Mali, and many
others places around the world. Are we gonna let all 32,727 screams fall on deaf ears? I say no,
we have to fight back, its our duty as Americans, and citizens of the world to protect all innocent
lives.