Regionalism

First of all, I welcome my opponent and other people who are visiting here. And this is my first debate you know. Do not put so much pressure. And now let us start. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before I start on debating and fight for what I do like, here is some things that you need to know. Regionalism is being a topic here so if do not know it here is the definition: Joseph Nye defined an international region "as a limited number of states linked by a geographical relationship and by a degree of mutual interdependence" or "the formation of interstate associations or groupings on the basis of regions" but this was never accepted but for me it is. www. Back on the topic, regionalism is a widely known by people around the world. In each continent in the world, there is a regional organization. In Europe is the EU, in Britain and its former colonies is the Commonwealth, in the Northern Asia and Eastern Europe is the Eurasian Customs Union, in Asia- Pacific is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, in Southeast Asia is ASEAN, in Africa is the African Union, in South Asia is the SAARC, in the Arab Region is the Arab Union, in the Pacific is the Pacific Islands Forum, in the Americas is the OAS and in South America is the UNASUR. All of them contribute in regionalism but since the start of the first nation, how does it began? The idea of regionalism starts with the League of Nations which started in 1920 and continued by the United Nations during 11945. But it was depicted as globalism not regionalism. This came up with a new idea, with very few regional grouping formed in before 1945 because it was rare and unknown. But in late 1940s, it now became popular and protesters advocated "escape from a theoretical and ineffective universalism into practical and workable regionalism". After that, exiled Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg had become Benelux as they signed their agreement in 1944 in London. In 1952, the Nordic Union comes up with Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland (Finland joined in 1955) to improve Nordic cooperation. The rest of Europe was inspired because of this so in 1951 in Paris, they formed the Europe Coal and Steel Community. And followed by the European Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic Community, the foundation to a European Union. But regionalism had already given rise to a floodtide of literature critical of its development or determined to justify it as a necessity for world security. Some critics were arguing that economic unions and common markets distorted the logic of a universal division of labor, and that regional military planning was made both impossible and obsolete. On the other hand, the defenders of the pattern were invoking the necessities of the cold war. By the 1960s a number of important changes in international politics " the easing of the intensity of the Cold War, the independence of new states that had been part of colonial empires, the successful initiation of the European integration experience " gave rise to a new range of questions about regionalism. According to Nye the new international environment made "the collective security and military defense focus of the writings in the early 1950s seem at best quaint and at worst misleading". But it was influenced in the 6 continents of the world with many regions spark out with the help of the UN geographical regions. So that all for the first round. Thank you and good luck for my appointment.