Failed nations are a greater threat to the U.S than stable nations

First off, I'd like to agree all definitions my opponent set forth. Since my opponent did not specify for certain which in the index of the Fund for Peace were failed states, I would like to supply that all states in the "Alert" status and only those states in the "Alert" status are to be considered failed states in this round. Also, although I highly doubt my opponent would do this, I would like to define the U. S. as the United States of America. My opponent didn't explicitly express this in her post, so I figured it couldn't hurt to say this. Now look to my opponents definition of "threat. " A threat is a "declaration of an intention to inflict punishment IN RETALIATION FOR or CONDITIONALLY UPON some course or action. " Since it seems obvious that a country cannot be a declaration or intention, we must look to the declarations and intentions of countries. We must weigh the magnitude of the threat by the ultimate ends of the threats, or the changes resulting from these threats. We also need to see that actions can be declarations of deed. However, an action that is a declaration by deed cannot be the punishment that would result conditionally upon another's behavior. First, if we look to the chart of the Fund for Peace, we see that the United States is not a failed state, but a stable state according to the definition for the round. If a threat is a declaration, and we judge the magnitude of a threat by the ultimate ends of a threat, we see that the only way the ultimate ends of a threat can even be resulted is if the United States takes some action or course that was warned against publicly. Thus, we need to see that ultimately the United States is the only one who can cause bad ends to itself in the case of threats. Since the United States is a stable nation, and essentially deciding to take some course of action is threatening themselves as they are aware of the consequences, the United States will be the largest threat to the United States. Another way to state this is to say that the United States will be declaring with its actions an intent to cause injury to themselves if they do indeed carry out the action. This is supported by my opponent's definition of threat, and thus we must see that any threat by another country can only cause harm to the United States, which is the way we determine magnitude of threats in the round, if the United States threatens itself by deed. This shows that a stable nation is the greatest threat to the United States. Moving on to my opponent's definition of Stable Nations, we see that she says that stable nations have "the exact opposite meaning" of failed nations, and that they are "able to interact with other countries as a whole. " If stable nations are able to interact with other countries, and they are the exact opposite of failed nations, then we need to see that failed nations are not capable of interactions with other countries as a whole. This means that failed nations are not capable of communicating intentions and determinations with other nations, especially, for the purposes of the resolution, the United States. Given that a failed nation cannot interact with the United States through word or deed to impose a threat, we must see that according to the definitions set in place by my opponents, failed nations are simply not capable of being a threat to the United States. Given that stable nations are able to communicate with the United States, we must see that they will eventually or currently impose a threat upon the United States, which will automatically make stable nations a greater threat than failed nations to the United States. When you throw in how I have shown that the United States is its own worst threat, we must see that we must negate. Another reason that we must see that stable nations are a greater threat than failed nations is that stable nations have greater means and less internal conflict. Stable nations have greater means, greater money, greater weapons to utilize to back up any threat to the United States. They have the capability to make the United States suffer much more than do failed nations. Since we must judge a threat by its ends, we must see that this capability is ultimately a deciding factor in this round. For an example of this, take a look at the amount of nuclear weapons all nations have (1). The only failed nations with nuclear missiles are Pakistan and possibly North Korea. This leaves less than one hundred nuclear weapons in the world in the possession of failed nations (2). Compare this with the 13865 nuclear weapons held by stable nations (noninclusive of the United States) and we see most definitely that the greater negative ends would be able to be put in place by stable nations. When you consider this, we must see that we must negate the resolution. Now, compare the viability of attack by a failed nation versus that of a stable nation. In order to carry out a unified attack against the United States, surely we must see that there mustn't be massive internal conflict. If we look at the indicators of failed nations (2), we see that these indicators basically add up to internal conflict. It is simply not viable to form an offensive front when there exists this conflict. Contrast that to stable nations, and we see that stable nations have fewer of the indicators of failed nations, and those they do have they possess in much smaller magnitude. Based on this, we see that stable nations are more capable of forming a threat against the United States. Given that I have shown that the United States is its own greatest threat, that failed nations are incapable of being a threat to the United States, and that stable nations have both the capability of producing a threat and the means of carrying a threat out, we must see that there is no other option other than seeing that stable nations are a greater threat to the United States than failed nations. (1) . http://www.fas.org... (2) . http://www.fundforpeace.org...