DDO OT Final: US hegemony is desirable.

Presume NegMy opponent never specified to whom US hegemony has to be desirable, so we must examine its effects on the world as a whole. If my opponent cannot show that 50.00...01% of the world’s population desires US hegemony, presume neg. because he fails to fulfill his burden. Given that most people in the US don’t care about international affairs [1], it’s safe to assume that this is applies to most other people. Also, in recent years, the percentage of impoverished people has risen dramatically [2], and most people are impoverished. The poor tend to vote less/be less politically active than the rich [3] because politics does little to aid them and they are struggling to survive, so they are likely apathetic on this issue. Thirdly, most people who do care would prefer that their nations be the world’s hegemon because it would increase their economic and political capital by massive rates. So, most people either do not care if the US is hegemon, meaning it is not desirable for them, or want their own nation to be hegemon, meaning it is not desirable. You can presume neg based on this analysis unless he proves that people are not short-sighted, self-interested creatures who want power for themselves and/or the poor do not struggle to survive. EconomyUS heg drains the economy and deprives the populace of money that could be spent on it . Lind writes, “Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has mindlessly sought to fill every power vacuum from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf to Central Asia, while spending far less on the military than it did in the Cold War. The U.S. has gone into debt to finance the Iraq and Afghan wars. You don't have to be a grand strategist to figure out that extending territorial commitments without commensurately expanding funding and troop levels is a formula for strategic and perhaps national bankruptcy. t Obama reflected the preferences of America's policy elite. Its members would gladly cut Social Security and Medicare in order to pay for bases and "nation-building" abroad. The impact is that heg isn’t even desirable for US citizens because the hard-earned money that they give to the gov. to help them is being spent on foreigners. If that money was invested in us instead, we could prosper and invest more in the economy. Eland agrees that heg is bankrupting the US. “The U.S. Empire helped cause the meltdown in the first place. War has a history of causing financial and economic calamities. It does so directly by almost always causing inflation. During wartime, governments usually commandeer resources from the private sector into the government realm to fund the fighting. This action leaves shortages of resources to make consumer goods and their components, therefore pushing prices up. Governments often times print money to fund the war, thus adding to the amount of money chasing the smaller number of consumer goods. Such “make-believe” wealth has funded many U.S. wars.We have seen that war ultimately causes the creation of both economic problems and nefarious government financial institutions that cause those difficulties. And of course, the modern day U.S. Empire also creates such economic maladies and wars that allow those institutions to wreak havoc on the economy.The Fed caused the current collapse in the real estate credit market, which has led to a more general global financial and economic meltdown, by earlier flooding the market with excess credit. That money went into real estate, thus creating an artificial bubble that eventually came crashing down in 2008. But what caused the Fed to vastly expand credit? To prevent a potential economic calamity after 9/11 and soothe jitters surrounding the risky and unneeded U.S. invasion of Iraq, Fed Chairman AlanGreenspan began a series of interest rate cuts that vastly increased the money supply. The interest rate cuts culminated in the extraordinary policy of lowering the federal funds rateMuch of this excess money ended up creating the real estate bubble that eventually caused the meltdown.So the causal arrow goes from these imperial behaviors—and blowback there from—to increases in the money supply to prevent related economic slowdown, which in turn caused even worse eventual financial and economic calamities. These may be indirect effects of empire, but they cannot be ignored. Get rid of the overseas empire because we can no longer afford it, especially when it is partly responsible for the economic distress that is making us poorer.” SafetyUS heg is bad for the people because states that become too powerful case other states to ally against it. Layne writes, “When a state becomes too powerful, it frightens others; in self-defense, they seek to offset and contain those great powers that aspire to primacy. And the ironclad lesson of history is clear: states that bid for hegemony (primacy) invariably fail.As Henry A. Kissinger has said, "hegemonic empires almost automatically elicit universal resistance, which is why all such claimants have sooner or later exhausted themselves."34Indeed, the history of modern international politics is strewn with the geopolitical wreckage of states that bid unsuccesfully for primacy: The Hapsburg Empire under Charles V, France under Louis XI V and Napoleon, Victorian Britain, Germany under Hitler. By pursuing a strategy of primacy, the United States today risks the same fate that has befallen other great powers that have striven to dominate the international political system.” There are two impacts. First, US heg increases conflicts. Gholz writes, “Selective engagers overstate the effect of U.S. military presence as a positive force for great power peace.Engagement may actually increase the likelihood of conflict.Although distant great power wars are bad for America, the only sure path to ruin is to step in the middle of a faraway fight. There is little reason to believe that withdrawal from Europe or Asia would lead to deterrence failures. With or without a forward U.S. presence, America’s major allies have sufficient military strength to deter any potential aggressors. d The danger of spirals leading to war in East Asia is remote. Asia, is blessed with inherent defensive advantages. Japan and Taiwan are islands, which makes them very difficult to invade. China has a long land border with Russia, but enjoys the protection of the East China Sea, The expanse of Siberia gives Russia, strategic depth. South Korea benefits from mountainous terrain wThe prospect for spirals is greater in Europe, but continued U.S. engagement does not reduce that danger; rather, it exacerbates the risk.” Second, interference abroad results in terrorism, which destroys the lives of our citizens.Layne writes, “Terrorism really is a form of asymmetric warfare waged against the United States by groups that lack the military wherewithal to slug it out with the United States toe-to-toe. 9/11 was a violent counter reaction to America’s geopolitical—and cultural—primacy. As Richard K. Betts presciently observed in a 1998 Foreign Affairs article, “It is hardly likely that Middle Eastern radicals would be hatching schemes like the destruction of the World Trade Center if the United States had not been identified so long as the mainstay of Israel, the shah of Iran, and conservative Arab regimes and the source of a cultural assault on Islam.” U.S. primacy fuels terrorist groups like al Qaeda and fans Islamic fundamentalism, which is a form of “blowback” against America’s preponderance and its world role. As long as the United States uses its global primacy to impose its imperial sway on regions like the Persian Gulf, it will be the target of politically motivated terrorist groups like al Qaeda.”Sources: http://www.debate.org...