War should be mandatory

My opponent has indeed presented a strong opening, and I will present my counter arguments. I also thank my opponent for narrowing down the scope of the debate considerably, instead of wasting our time arguing over the inevitability of war. As a rebuttal to my arguments my opponent has pointed out certain flaws in my proposal and has raised 5 points. I'll address those points out of sequence. But before addressing them, I'd like to make some things clear, which my opponent seems to have misunderstood. My opponent thinks that: Nations will have to go to war with randomly picked countries. Wars will be fought in city streets and in areas where the populace will be affected. I state that this was never the intention. As I stressed often in my opening arguments, everything will be fixed by pre-arrangement. If such is the case, why would countries choose to fight wars in heavily populated areas, critical locations and such? Countries will have an option of choosing whichever nation they want to go to war against. It depends upon what a nation wants. If it wants a certain resource, it can go to war against a country that has that resource. There's nothing random in this. Also, as I said, the time periods between wars can be fixed. As an example, the time period could be a generation. Thus, every generation will have faced a war in their times. This is supposedly character-building. [1] I'll now proceed with my points. 1. It will cause intellectual chaos. As wars ARE going on in the world every year, does my opponent think there is intellectual chaos right now? My opponent also thinks that wars will be fought between random countries, and as I said, this is not the case. The population only has to get along with the decision of whom to fight, as under my proposal war is mandatory. Nobody has to convince the population to go to war, it's just which country to go to war against. Maybe one party wants to fight Eritrea, while the other thinks Indonesia is where the booty is, to put it flippantly. To give examples, World War 1 had no real underpinning reason to it. Did the population need to be re-educated and all the things my opponent says? Did it destroy the foundations of logic, etc.? The losing nations (or at least Germany) emerged stronger in less than a decade and in fact made giants leaps in technology, so much so that they regained much more than they lost in the previous war (at least for a time). 2. It will cause social disruption My opponent has given examples of certain countries that have avoided wars for generations. Japan, it seems, has not engaged in warfare for almost 70 years. Well, if that's the case, why then is Japan currently the fourth in the list of defense spending budgets by country? [2] Since, irrespective of the lack of warfare, Japan IS expending resources in training people to ready for war without causing any social disruption, my opponents argument that this expenditure will cause social disruption is unfounded Also, as wars will be fought in pre-decided locations, the peaceful population will not have to see the horrors of war, unless they wish to. They just need to know that a war is going on in their country, and they will be required to contribute to the war effort. Moreover, my opponent is not taking into consideration the civilian lives my proposal will save. As wars are fixed, only soldiers will participate in it. The civilian death toll will be zero. This will in fact reduce social disruption by limiting wars to military personnel. 3. It will cause political dysfunction As my opponent said, international politics is a delicate game of power. But when played well, it's always the people of the non-developed countries that get the raw end of the deal. To cite an example, such a well played game between the developed countries and the Libyan president, ensured that trade went on smoothly, without any concern for whether the money is actually going to the Libyan people. The diplomats just want to ensure that their country gets the resources with the least amount of expenditure. This is a bad deal for the Libyan people. Well, you can argue that the Libyans should have done something to prevent a tyrant from assuming leadership, but that's beside the point. This game is heavily loaded in favor of the advanced countries, who have the money, the knowledge and the expertise, without going into seeing how they actually managed to gain all these. If my opponent wants alliances and friendships to be taken into account, by all means. Wars can be fought between multiple allied countries on both sides. How my proposal will improve things? Since war is mandatory, a leader has no option but to treat his people fairly, so that they will do their utmost to help the war effort. Nothing disposes a leader as quickly as a lost war. Of course, care has to be taken to see that the leaaders are not cheating or conspiring with opposition leaders, but all these things are necessities of my proposal. 4. It will cause economic ruin. As we have seen, countries that have not fought wars in generations are still spending a lot in defense. I fail to understand how fixing everything, so that you know beforehand how much you will need to spend (to a reasonable extent) and damages with regards to environment, civiilian life and society limited to the utmost; will be a cause for economic ruin. The current scenario, where a country always has to be prepared for an attack, especially if surrounded by unstable countries (like India/Pakistan or S/N Korea) as well as the never ending hunt for resources and their smooth deployment causing countries like the US to station troops in places far removed from their soil, and engage in wars against things like terrorism, etc. will cause economic ruin faster. So, instead of the way my opponent stacks up examples of how bullet casings lost, destroyers sunk, fuel consumed etc. could have been put to further use, I can simply respond by saying the same thing in this manner, viz. every bullet casing made, every destroyer built, every single drop of fuel reserved for military vehicles for generations with the sole intention of NEVER using them, as in the case of Japan, could very well have been used for highrises and circuits and what not. Also, soldiers volunteer for wars under my proposal (because they are highly paid, and it's also a matter of prestige), so the loss of their lives is not something for us to worry about. The loss of civilians in the current scenario however, is something that should worry everybody. Some of the countries that don't spend much in defense do so because their defense is subsidized by some other country, but ultimately, the cost is being paid. My opponent raises points about investments, loans, etc. But I fail to see how such things will be affected unduly. Investors will know exactly when a war will be fought, and what all could be lost. It's also not like a war will be fought every other week and on critical parts of the country. I'd take this over any kind of uncertainty related to war. Nothing is simple in economics, but the removal of uncertainty plays a huge factor in economic stability (I think I can get away with this statement without linking sources?) 5. There is no method of enforcement. Well, yeah. A method would have to be found out. All the countries need to create something like the United Warring Nations. But is my opponent saying that if a method is found out, my proposal will become valid? Let us first debate the validity of the proposal before working out details in enforcing it. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk... [2] http://www.globalfirepower.com...