This House Would Create A UN Standing Army

Thank you for the arguments: Nationalism Does Not Apply Here: My opponent completely ignores my argument here, and claims that a UN army must come from somewhere, and that they have ties to their respective countries. First of all, while there is no doubt that a UN soldier has ties to his country of origin, the fact of the matter remains that we still technically employ soldiers within those same means today under the occupational title of "peacekeepers". Essentially, we already do this and have had minimal issues with soldiers following UN orders. What this legislation does, is give the UN powers to enforce it's legislation already signed on by the consenting parties in contract with UN membership. Now lets have a hypothetical of this UN standing army: lets say in our standing army (for simplicity) the UNSC demands 100 troops. 4 countries donate (for a temporary amount of time) 25 troops each for the UN standing army. The four countries in question are Iran, Canada, US, and China. Now let's say Iran hates US, launches a war against them, and proceeds to remove their 25 troops from the UN standing army. The UN standing army would still have 75 troops left to serve in the effort against Iran and it's hegemonious government! Which means that depending on the structure of how the UN army would be built on an assumed equal, and rotating basis (like above) then we don't have to worry about the nationalism of a soldier to his home country. Indeed, what this legislation is asking for, is for countries to be forced into donating an equal amount of troops for a shared goal of being able to enforce it's legislation's against those parties that agreed to them in the first place. The Goals of the UN Are For Diplomacy, But Diplomacy Doesn't Always Work: In my previous argument I note Romeo Dallaire's Shake Hands With the Devil as a source for a standing UN army. In fact, the basis of the book is to justify being a "liberal hawk" with regards to the UN issues pertaining to Rwanda, my opponent claims that the UN was suppose to be not about violence but tact and diplomacy instead. The problem here? As with Rwanda, diplomacy when one of the parties is bent on killing the other regardless of outcome within those diplomatic instances will not cause them to negotiate. In fact, the Tutsi slaughter in the Rwandan genocide was outright because of the President of Rwanda always had intended on trying to kill off the remaining minority within the country. Dallaire notes that one source of his (which remained classified) claimed that they were always going to kill off the Tutsi's and had arm caches ready to do so, he not only witnessed them, but sent a cable out to the UN, to which the UN halted any raiding operations on them to prevent genocides. Case and point: the Hutu led government never intended on negotiating in good faith, they were ready to kill even prior to the outcomes of the negotiations. There was no stopping them. .. however, if the UN was given an adequate army as Dallaire noted, and he was able to actually enforce the provisions of the Accords in place, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Besides, even if the UN has a standing army. This isn't an argument against it, but rather that it should be a "last resort" basis for the UNSC. Which I would agree with, the UN ought to indeed use peace, negotiations, and diplomatic tact to try and cease genocides. However, should that fail, I assert that the UN should have a standing army capable of enforcing those in which needs enforcing for international law, and protecting those in which most need protection. A UN Standing Army Would Be Expensive, But the End Result Is Priceless and Good For the Economy: My opponent asserts here that the UN standing army alone would be costly. This is undoubtedly true, but ignores several fundamental issues aside from costs. First of all, the member states involved in the UN already pay membership fee's for the benefits of joining the UN. Part of that fee is being able to support or withdrawal troops from the UN's peacekeeping forces, and --hopefully the time will never come -- the UN would be there for you should order and justice be void within your given territories for any reason. If the member states find this desirable, and are willing to pay for it, why not allow them to get what they want? Secondly, it would be far more beneficial to have a UN standing army than not. Let's note, that according to learning liberty, that wars are not indeed profitable, and if that is the case, and a UN standing army would surely cut down acts of genocide (which are indeed war like in their nature) then it would be beneficial to the global economy as a result. Cutting down the costs of humanitarian issues caused by genocides would no doubt assist the global economy, along with eliminating refugee costs with it. (. http://dbp.idebate.org...)(http://www.youtube.com... video) Now that I have refuted my opponents case, I shall add in a few new arguments along with it: -The goal of the UN was to promote international security as well. This legislation allows the UN to do it's duty with regards to that goal. - A UN army has a distinct advantage: it belongs to not any one country and therefore cannot be accused of "playing favourites" like the case of Rwanda and the US's inaction. - Finally, this does not absolve the UN of also trying to take this legislation in combination with other legislation's to try and prevent and punish acts against humanity. Or more simply put: this is one step the UN ought to take to uphold international law, and justice for all, others can and should be taken into consideration, however the current system is undoubtedly unstable and in a huge need of a fix.