DDO OT Final: US hegemony is desirable.

I'll respond to my opponents case.General critiques My opponent fails to offer up any real world alternative to US hegemony. This forces us to entirely disregard her case. I'm not trying to be cheap and get a free win, but it's literally impossible to weigh the desirability of US hegemony without a competing alternative. Saying "the US is bad" isnt enough to negate if all the other alternatives are even worse. Indeed, Cons arguments almost entirely lack explanatory analysis,it seems as if she basically just copy/pasted a bunch of "heg bad" cards without explaining how this negates the resolution and offers no over-arching view of foreign policy/relations. Note also that her arguments make no response to economic and cultural hegemony, only military aspects, and few if any of her impacts are outside of the US.Presume neg Con makes an abusive and unfair argument, apparently hoping the debate will boil down to the word "desirable". She argues that since I havent shown over 50% of the world wants US hegemony it isnt desirable, but the problem is that:A. She agreed to not make the debate about semanticsB. The opening round which she accepted said that desirability is to be weighed by real world implications, so we have to look at the effect the US has on the world.C. Even if she was rght, finding a stat on this would be difficult. Still, the approval of US leadership is within the margin of error to meet her ridiculous burden[1], and tops by nearly double digits any other major power.Her entire analysis is useless and counter-intuitive to the purpose of the debate, hopefully this issue can be put to bed and we can debate the topic instead of what desirable means.Economy I have multiple responses.First, TURN: US hegemony aids the spread of free trade, aiding the global economy.Second, wars being expensive isnt an argument unless it's compared to some kind of alternative (like the economic effects of not going to war/having no hegemon). Even the poorly managed fiscal nightmares of Iraq and Afghanistan under the two most fiscally irresponsible presidents ever (Bush II and Obama) failed to crash the economy. Defense spending constitutes only 19% of the federal budget[2] and is easily outweighed by entitlement spending in costs.Third, this is an argument against the manner some wars are conducted, not US hegemony as a whole. We can see from examples such as the Persian gulf war that hegemonic war doesnt have to be very financially strenuous. Fourth, this is a US specific impact, what's the impact this has on everyone else?Fifth, Con doesnt quantify into real world terms how much the effects on the economy are. How are we to weigh her argument if we dont know what the true costs are?Sixth, there's no warrant on this being specifically a problem with US hegemony. Con doesnt explain how negative effects on economies from war spending wont happen if another country gets hegemony/in a state of multipolarity.Seventh, TURN: Her Eland card specifically says: "During wartime, governments usually commandeer resources from the private sector into the government realm to fund the fighting. This action leaves shortages of resources to make consumer goods and their components, therefore pushing prices up." However, the government commandeering of resources is the worst in a state of total war, when virtually every available resource is taken up for the war effort[3](note the huge spikes during the two world wars), yet total wars only occur during periods of multipolarity thus affirming that US hegemony is good. Military spending as a proportion of the GDP has actually declined since the Soviet Union collapsed and the US gained total hegemony.Eighth, this is an argument against fed policy and poorly managed resources, not hegemony. Robert Hetzel, a senior economist at Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond explains[4] that the recession only turned very bad when the fed started intervening in the economy, specifically after the housing bubble and then proceeded to do nothing, making the recession bad. Indeed her only evidence doesnt establish a casual relationship between war and bad fed policies, it names a single data point. Moreover this doesnt at all outweigh, and other nations have central banks that screwed up during the recession[4] so the problem isnt unique to the US. Ninth, TURN: The US often creates allies who become economic powerhouses when it intervenes. The positive economic effects of US trade with South Korea, West Germany, and Japan are incalcuable. Compare this to countries the US let slip from its hegemony, hermit North Korea, East Germany, China which has only recently opened up to the US, and the Eastern bloc. It's pretty obvious which countries contributed more to the world economy when they werent under US hegemony (note that China only became an economic powerhouse when it left Soviet hegemony). BlowbackFirst, Con asserts that other states are going to ally against the US because they hate it. This is an incredibly simplistic view of foreign relations. First look the to fact that most people prefer to US to the alternatives and second that the US has been the only superpower for over 20 years with no coalition of nations forming against it. The fact is that the US is a benevolent power on the world stage, and most nations recognize this.Secondly TURN: She argues: "the history of modern international politics is strewn with the geopolitical wreckage of states that bid unsuccesfully for primacy", thus we should prefer the status quo of US primacy since it avoids the inevitable power struggle. The US already has primacy. Moreover, most her examples arent examples of unipolar systems but rather multi or bipolar situations. The Hapsburg empire was rivaled by France and the Ottoman empire, France was rivaled by England and Prussia, TURN: Victorian Englands hegemony was a period of peace until it lost its hegemony to Germany and Austria, casuing WWI, and the Third Reich was challenged by the Russians, Britian, and the US.Third, her blowback impact isnt unique to the US and she doesnt try to weigh it. What is the negative effect over all of blowback? Moreover, you can turn this argument against her since US culture tends to be less dominating and supremacistic than ther cultures, minimizing blowback that would occur. Blowback is almost certain to occur during any war/occupation, Con must show why this blowback is particuarly worse against the US.Fourth, Con has no warrant on US hegemony escalating/causing conflicts, her evidence literally just asserts it. If this is true, she has to explain the lack of major wars during the decades of unrivaled US hegemony. I dont understand what shes arguing here, saying that Europe doesnt need US help and Asia has good defensive terrain has nothing to do with US hegemony.Fifth, this is really easily outweighed by collapse into multipolarity. Even if you buy this argument, the resolution isnt "US hegemony is perfect", we just have to weigh the Pro's and Con's of each side.Sixth, this entire argument is cherry picking. Rather than assess the actual effects of US policies, Con gives specific examples of terrorism but the problem is that she doesnt say how this could be solved so we have no way of evaluating whether or not this impact is a necessary evil or not.Seventh, its unlikely that terrorism is the result of US intervention. Osama Bin Laden wasnt foolish enough to think that the US would not intervene more in the middle east after being attacked. TURN: Greater US hegemony over the middle east has led to the extermination of most al queda leaders and greater intelligence helping it prevent more terrorism.The resolution is clearly affirmed.Sources:http://www.debate.org...