War should be mandatory

I thank Indophile for this debate.I have no new definitions to add.To begin, I completely agree with my opponent in a number of crucial areas. War is not going away; wars are being fought all the time; wars begin almost every years; wars are very expensive; and many inventions owe their development to wartime innovations.This narrows down the scope of this debate considerably. My opponent has an interesting proposition to cut down on the social, economic, and moral costs of warfare; his proposal is inherently flawed, however.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1. No method of enforcementAt the present, no agency exists with the political capital and military backing needed to enforce such a mandate. It is obvious it cannot be one of the existing nations, since they would exempt themselves from the requirement and negate the whole purpose for it; similarly, it cannot be an international body with troops from all the member nations, since no nation would willing enter into an agreement to be forced into scheduled wars, especially considering the reasons I give below.Pro gives no method of enforcement; without this, the mandate would be unanimously ignored and is void. 2. Social disruptionPro's proposal would bring war to every country on earth by turns, even those countries which have successfully avoided warfare for generations. Japan, for example, has not fought any wars since WWII ended, almost seventy years ago. Switzerland has maintained armed neutrality since the Siege of Gaeta in 1861.[1] These neutral countries and other like them would now be forced to expend resources on war and re-train an otherwise peaceful population in the ways of hating other nations. The necessary propaganda efforts and re-education would would disrupt the balance of society; seeing the horrors of war enacted on previously peaceful streets because some trans-government organization forced them to fight would sour them on the idea. America likewise has not fought a war within its borders since the Civil War ended in 1865. The populations, unruly even at the best of times, would not suffer suddenly being forced to allow other nations to invade and fight on American territory. If this mandate were effected, these nations would revolt. Any one of the three I just mentioned would be strong enough to repel any efforts on the part of any imaginable NGO to enforce the mandate; there are many other nations in similar positions, who would never tolerate such an intrusion in their peace. Together, they spell disaster for anyone foolish enough to attempt such a mandate.3. Political disfunctionInternational politics is a delicate game of power. Played well, war is unnecessary for most nations. Many nations, as I have just established, get along with most of the world diplomatically, settling their differences peacefully. On the rare occasions civilized countries go to war, it is because the diplomacy has failed, and whatever objective they seek is not available by any peaceful means. War is, after all, very expensive.To mandate tiny wars for arbitrary reasons is to play havoc with the balances diplomacy needs to function. Over time, Pro's system will have every country engage every other country by turn in a war to some extent or other. Previous alliances and friendships are not taken into account. Since the decisions are arbitrary and semi-random, there is no basis for political arrangements between countries, as any two countries cannot tell how long they have before it will be their turn to fight. Friendships cannot be lasting, alliances are useless, and diplomacy is both impossible and useless.I fail to see how this improves anything at all.4. Economic ruinMy opponent and I are agreed; war is expensive. I think he fails to grasp just how expensive it is, though. Scarcity is the bane of any economy, the driving factor behind all economics. Ignore scarcity at your peril. Any resources wasted in fighting these constant toothpick wars is resources that cannot be used to build up national economies. Every ton of steel left to rust on a battlefield can no longer be used to build railways at home. Every destroyer sunk represents a highrise that cannot be built; every bullet casing lost could have been used to make circuits instead. Every one of these useless little wars will drink irreplaceable fuel. Each one will kill off fit members of the workforce, some of which having potential far beyond that of a common soldier.On top of that, my opponent would award the "winner" with resources or territory looted from the other country. Whether the two countries would have even thought these resources worth fighting over is never asked; the answer, given any two randomly picked countries, is probably no. There are over two hundred countries in this world, most of them small. The odds that two randomly picked countries would be close enough to share easy access to resources worth fighting over is small; if the country cannot economically access the award, the waste is even greater than if the two countries had not fought, since the loser can no longer use the resources either.I ask my opponent to justify this waste, if he can.Furthermore, every modern economy depends on investment capital. Rich people and corporations invest their resources, and products are made, research gets done, progress is made, and taxes are paid. Now suppose these rich entities knew that a war was imminent, and that it would take place in the cities and fields of their particular country. Would it be reasonable for them to remain in the country and risk losing their wealth?This mandate would result in the rich keeping their assets fairly liquid, so that they could move them offshore when the war came. This means: no long-term loans, little if any infrastructure investment, few R&D investments (since most of those pay off only after many years of research), and little or no investment in the government. Now imagine that investors all over the world no longer could rely on their assets being safe, even under the protection of the largest nations on earth. The resulting panic and withdrawal of investments would destroy the world economy and plunge us all into the greatest depression imaginable.This mandate is economic suicide.5. Intellectual chaosMy opponent mentions "drumming up war hysteria;" and he is quite right. For this to work, both sides of the toothpick war will have to employ thorough propaganda to get their population to go along with the war (if they even would then). The costs of this, in terms of real knowledge, is frightful.Histories would have to be revised. Truth would have to be suppressed on a massive scale. At some point, each country in the world will be placed in the position of having to come up with a casus belli against another nation with which it will have had virtually no dealings; the re-education needed to make people accept such farfetched explanations would destroy the foundations of logic on which science and learning depend. Truth and logic might be the true casualty of such a scheme; only confusion and anti-intellecualism can result from such universal dis-education.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~True costThe true cost of such a mandate would, for these five reasons, be untenable.In my opponent's words:"Thus, if you favor a balanced budget, technological advancement, social unity, fiscal responsibility, education, minimal loss of life and undisturbed peace," Con is the only reasonable vote.I return this debate to my opponent, with my thanks.-C.[1] http://www.constantinianorder.org...