Is This A TEST

First, To those reading this debate, let me give you a bit of context that was excluded from the beginning of the debate. This argument began when my opponent posted an opinion poll about Russian bombers preforming military test off the US coastline. My opponent claimed that Russia is preparing to attack and that (thanks to the Obama administration) America is vulnerable. I responded to this by posting... "The US is not that vulnerable You are a little misinformed about a few things. First and foremost, every single military exercise that has been conducted by the Russian military near the US has been intercepted between 30 and 50 miles off shore (which is well within international waters). The US doesn't treat anything like a test. Every approaching aircraft that enters even our fishing regions, which stretch several hundred miles off shore, are treated as a potential treat, especially post 9/11. We give them warnings to back off at around 100 to 70 miles. Intercept them and drive them away at around 50 to 30. And Shoot them down the second they enter US waters (12 miles off shore). If an aircraft does enter US territorial waters, we have ample opportunity to deal with it." [1] Second, The Russian Federation is not Communist. They are Capitalist like every other world power. Even China is not Communist, despite the Communist party leading them. They have a capitalist economy with socialist tendencies mixed in. Their is no actual communist country in the world right now. And as for Muslim nations, Im assuming that you are referring to Iran (which doesn't have nuclear weapons yet) or Pakistan (which does have nuclear weapons but is a close trading partner and ally of the US). A nations religion has no say in how they will react to having nukes. North Korea is atheist and they are pretty crazy about their warheads. Pakistan and India both have nukes and neither has tried to use them. Third, as I stated earlier but you clearly glossed over, nukes don't matter. The US has enough nuclear warheads that no other nuclear armed nation will risk a war. Reducing or increasing are nuclear stockpile will not effect that in any way. We do not need 32,000 nukes to defend this country, and neither does ever other nuclear armed nation. And they all know this. Russia and the US has been dismantling their stockpiles for years now. Their is simply no point in having tens of thousands of warheads. Why have 32,000 when you can achieve the same goal with 1500 (oh, and we already have a deployed nuclear force of 1550 warheads. Well 1597 to be exact. But you would already know that if you read my earlier rundown of both the US' and Russia's nuclear stockpile. Deployed simply means how many we can use immediately, not how many we have). It is a waste of money. Four, If you are now moving on to conventional forces, then the US is even further from vulnerable than we were with nukes. The United States was gifted with two very impressive natural barriers that defend it from foreign aggression. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The US Navy's dominance at sea (and I mean dominance. The rest of the worlds navies put together can't beat the US Navy) all but guarantees that any conflict between any of our "adversaries" will not even get close to US soil. The largest armies in the world can not help them if they can't get a single one across the ocean. In addition the US has the top 2 strongest air forces (1st is the US Air Force, 2nd is the US Navy), of which we have repeatedly proven how control of the skies can counter even superior numbers in combat. [2][3] Five, none of the nations you have listed as our enemies gains anything by going to war with the US. Chinas economy is so heavily dependent on the American consumer that even cutting off trade temporally, let alone a war, will collapse their economy. North Korea similarly, is completely reliant on China for survival, so the same law can be applied to them. China has repeatedly told NK to behave themselves. Russia is largely dependent on the Oil trade to sustain their economy, which drives them to preserve as many of their markets as possible. Russia sells a large portion of their oil to the rest of Europe, which are staunch US allies. Iran, which is reliant on both China and Russia for survival, would never try to attack the US. They will all puff up their chests and try to look big and tough in front of the goliath that is America, but none of them will EVER make a move against us. Globalization and trade have seen to that. [4] [5] Six, The US is no closer to WW3 than we were at the hight of the cold war. Our enemies have adopted western ideals, they are heavily reliant on our economic prosperity, are defense budgets and military hardware are larger and more sophisticated than during the cold war, and the number of total conflicts in the world are at the lowest they've been in the modern era. We are actually living in one of the most peaceful times in recent history. So stop fear mongering. The world is just fine. [1] http://www.debate.org... [2] http://nationalinterest.org... [3] http://topyaps.com... [4] http://www.forbes.com... [5] http://www.businessinsider.com...