America's military is the greatest in the world.

My opponent's round largely consists of misperceptions and too narrow of a perspective. While I appreciate his comments on the USA's primary assault rifles, most of his other points are largely erroneous or misplaced. At prime is his abuse of military history. He either takes a too simplistic view, unfairly disregards effectiveness, and even gets some facts plain wrong. I will respond with my same format but incorporate my opponent's as well: ==================== Ground Forces ==================== "quantity V's quality" My opponent rejects my point about quantity over quality by arguing countries like China have been updating it's military. First of all, he has absolutely no stable way of depicting or tracking the progress of China's military given their secrecy. Further, while they are very likely updating their army they are still racked with problems - notable conscription and inadequate equipment. Not only does the USA army beat China in both regards, but it'd be ignorant to forget that the USA is ALSO improving their army as well. I already referenced a long-term program dedicated at transforming the US army for a more appropriate functionality given 21st century warfare (meaning a lot of integration, information networks, etc.). My opponent misuses the point about Russia facing a similar situation with the Nazis - they survived because the Nazis made two fatal errors: they attacked Russia in their own soil (i.e. harsh weather - Napoleon lost to this) and because their forces were spread from fighting the Allies and Russia. "DIFFERENT UNITS FOR DIFFERENT OPERATIONS" Did you not read my round? If you're going to use one quote talking about the Iraq situation, then you should be well prepared to counter my point that the reason the war isn't as smooth as we would wish is because of reasons similar to what Barnett stated - there are other objectives than simply killing Iraqi terrorists. We hope to introduce political stability, which means a.) we can't do things like demolish the entire country and b.) we are using Marines wrongly because of this overzealous goal (it is one of the primary jobs of Special Forces, not Marines, to distinguish between civilians and soldiers whilst training the local militia). The problem in Iraq is largely due to political reasons. "the secrecy shrouding such units is too much to make any clear decision." Lol, you kidding me? Having boastful special forces in no way lets us examine their tactics, review their cases, etc. Further, at the least the USA would come in at a close second behind Britain (which in the overall scheme of warfare, doesn't matter that heavily). We still have Delta force, DEVGRU, Special Activities Division, etc. In fact, the amount of branches and units are quite lengthy[1]. "The UAV drones America uses are MUCH MORE COMPLICATED than any DIY ones you can make off Google" Lol, you kidding me again? I honestly doubt I need to reinforce my point here - having a ghetto attempt at a UAV in no way compares to state-of-the-art military equipment. Why don't you get a large pipe, add some tinkering of metal and gunpowder, get a large cannon ball or two, stick it on your humvee, and create an armored personal carrier? Then go take that and drive into Iraq and come back telling me how you do. "accurate artillery" I'm not sure what's sad about watching this program - I do too :). Anyway, your video bolsters my point that the USA army is constantly devising and developing new weaponry. Obviously environmental conditions complicate artillery, but that's one of the primary issues any artillery piece that has been created in the past decade has sought to defeat (among other things). Accuracy involves being able to account for these factors, so honestly I have no clue why my opponent links me a new improved artillery system that helps the USA defeat environmental problems. While I agree that the main assault rifle could be better, it can fare enough with most units relying confidence in their rifle (around 90%). Unless you can demonstrate a stark consistent example of it's failures then your point is moot (it'd simply be you chanting we need better guns, without showing a demonstrable capable gap in the M4 that leads to considerable repercussions). "the Army relies on supporting it's troops with armor" I never stated the Abrams, just stating it's superiority as a main battle tank. It'd be foolish to attack it's lack of invulnerability and yet ignore it's impressive capabilities. Further, to claim that we can "get around" it's weaknesses COMPLETELY misses the point of having a holistic approach to this debate -- no general in their right mind would send a group of tanks into battle alone; it would always be accompanied with personnel units at the very least. And again, using your Nazi point is ridiculous - they lost simply because they bit off more than they could chew, having too many opponents to compensate for. ==================== Air and Sea Forces ==================== My opponent uses historical examples again to advance his claim that over-reliance on air power is a mistake. Yes, it is but the USA military DOESN'T DO THAT. You are taking an unfair approach to this debate -- I stress again, a holistic approach must be taken if we are to sensibly argue this. But back to your examples: Vietnam and the second Gulf War were political losses. The USA military will obviously incorporate other units in their usage of air and sea forces, but still you should realize how powerful these branches are. Other nations pale in comparison - we not only have the most aircraft/sea ships but also the most technologically advanced. If you wish, I could cite numerous examples of superior equipment but I doubt I need to do that. ==================== Other things to consider ==================== "Thomas Barnett" I'm not sure my opponent understands the Thomas Barnett TED video: he's arguing that in the context of objectives in foreign policy (notably to achieve peace), a military defeat shouldn't be looked at in reductive terms. Instead, he stresses a more holistic approach that emphasizes other values than defeating your opponent (i.e. maintaining stable peace afterwards, respecting human values, etc.). Given this, obviously the USA will have trouble with Iraq if they want to introduce a democratically stable political atmosphere -- if their only objective was to kill all Iraqi terrorists with casualties allowed, then hell they could carpet bomb the d@mn place. Or even nuke it. "listing facts" Listing facts is easy, and we both did it in this debate, but you failed to consider a holistic approach to this debate. No battle between adequate command sends any of it's units alone or among only it's kind - they obviously send a mixture of troops, armor, and other equipment. Thus, you have to consider this when criticizing sole units. "waste of money" Did you not read my previous round? I went into how the USA uses a lot of money on it's military budget and YET is quite low on the world ranking for overall spending out of our GDP - we spend around 4% in 2005, which is remarkable. So yeah, if some girl spends 300 bucks a week on clothes that looks quite wasteful...but if her daddy makes billions of dollars a year then she can obviously compensate for this spending. ---References--- 1. http://en.wikipedia.org...