New Zealand should abolish their defence force

Like him I will go through the arguments again as I have numbered them.1. EconomyCon asserts that our situation is entirely our fault, like we prayed to some God that our city of Christchurch would crumble in an earthquake and wallow in liquifaction. Us no longer being the top dogs is because what made us rich is our agriculture industry, and then some industrialists like con came along and told us to build factories. There's almost an exact correlation between us trying to build a secondary industry and us falling behind. Thankfully now we're reinventing ourselves in the tertiary sector. Don't go back to a failed policy! Con says it will help unemployment. Wrong. If we raise taxes to fund the military spending (which we will have to do), businesses across the board are forced to take on less staff. At best it will do nothing for our unemployment. Some models predict it will create an employment disaster, as the military isn't exactly a mobile alternative job for war-concious people. Finally con says we can manufacture weapons. As I've stated, we don't have the natural resources here.2. ResentmentMy opponent doesn't really rebut resentment within New Zealand, only internationally. Never mind. Even if there is a cycle of war, New Zealand isn't part of it. Nobody attacks us, and nobody will looking ahead. We don't have leaders abusing their power here, largely because our leaders have incredibly ill-defined powers, and tend to get over-ruled by other leaders who thought they controlled the country if they do anything incredibly silly (which is rare, but it has happened). In fact, we had a leader who did exactly what you described - prime minister Roger Muldoon - but another one of our leaders (the governor-general) literally got him drunk and suggested he step down immediately, and that was the end of that. We can much more effectively help the global cycle of war be less inevitable by not sending our troops to fight in global wars, but rather negotiating to end them.3. Beautiful landMove the military? To where? We don't really have a spare desert or anything nobody would mind being blown up.4. Better diplomacyGlad we agree our military sucks. But be able to stall an invasion? From who? And a precaution against what? And how will this help diplomacy? The sort of rhetoric my opponent uses is not uncommon, but always vague and non-specific. I fear any nation arming for war against an invasion that will not happen. Con tryed to tell you the US or Australia will attack us. If they did, you can be assured we will have no allies to call on. And we're supposed to stall them for weeks? Egypt had a massive military and lots of allies before the six-day war. How well did that policy work for them?5. No threatMy opponent notes that things can change. I agree. But should the government spend millions on something that will almost certainly never happen? There is literally no justification for a war against us. It's much harder to invent one when we are active in international diplomacy. That's why the Tamils fared so poorly - they never took their concerns to other nations friendly to their cause, and they never talked. They just prepared for war. There is a very strong justification for attack if we militarise, however - we are a threat. If we're not a threat, it makes no sense to spend millions eliminating us. That's why Iran has all those sanctions now - people think they are a threat.6. Human/environmental tollThere are no locations in New Zealand that do not have air, water or land to pollute, no to mention wildlife. Actually the LEAST environmentally dangerous location we own is a part of Antarctica, although that's protected by the Antarctic treaty. Besides that, there are penguins that might not like it, ice that might be polluted, and a ozone gap that might make use of it. In addition, there is also the cost in human lives of being in the army, which my opponent completely ignores.7. Military coupSure, some countries have remained stable, others have not. I agree. But why should we spend so much money on such a gamble? Wouldn't it be better to spend no money and have no chance of a military coup?8. VeteransMy opponent presupposes we will be attacked to rebut this point. I disagree that this is a valid presumption for the reasons stated earlier. I don't want a crime-filled nation which I have to spend lots of taxes to maintain, that provides security against a threat nobody can define to me. The reason we don't have so much peace in the world is because no nation is willing to demilitarise and fight for it. I say it's time for somebody to take a stand! New Zealand has led the world in many ways before, and we're proud of that. Our nonviolent resistance at Parihaka was one of Ghandi's inspirations. Today, we can prepare for war, and that will inevitably lead us to war. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. Let us live in peace. Let us abolish the military.