The United States has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflicts

- Affirmative Case - On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced one of the largest terrorist attacks of all times. This massive attack, which killed around 3000 people, reminds us how important national security is. It is because of the critical importance of National Security that I stand RESOLVED: The United States has a Moral Obligation to Mitigate International Conflicts. For the sake of clarity, lets define some terms. Definitions 1. Moral: "A particular system of values and principles of conduct." [Merriam Webster"s Collegiate Dictionary] 2. Obligation: "Something that you must do because it is morally or legally right." [Merriam Webster"s Collegiate Dictionary] 3. Mitigate: "To cause to become less harsh or hostile." [Merriam Webster"s Collegiate Dictionary] 4. International Conflict: "A conflict between two or more countries." Resolutional Analysis Let us examine a brief resolutional analysis. For the purposes of this resolution, I will treat the United States as the US government since the population cannot directly exercise control over foreign policy. The government possesses the only legitimate authority over foreign policy, so in the context of the resolution, the United States must be the United States federal government. Also, an international conflict, for the purposes of this resolution, must be initiated by two countries outside the United States. This is intuitive, because in order for us to mitigate, we cannot be involved in the conflict in question beforehand. Value Analysis My value today is that of National Security, defined as "A collective term for the defense and foreign relations of a country." [Oxford American Dictionary]. My value of National Security is linked to the resolution by my criterion of Social Contract. Social contract is defined as, "An agreement, entered into by individuals, that results in the formation of the state or of organized society, the prime motive being the desire for protection, which entails the surrender of some or all personal liberties" [Free Dictionary.com] In other words, social contract states that the people give up some of their freedom so the government can keep them safe. Thus, the government"s primary moral obligation is to the security of it"s people, making National Security the paramount moral concern of any and all governmental policy, domestic or foreign. Ct. 1: National Security is the Principle Moral Obligation of Government According to "Du contrat social" by John Jacques Rousseau the government has a moral obligation to protect its citizens. Also, we see in John Locke"s Second Treatises of Government the same sort of idea, "The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting." In this quote, the preservation of property is another saying for national security. Thus we can see in this example that John Locke, primary founder of Social Contract theory himself said that national security is the primary goal of the government. This principle is proved by the story of our own Constitution. The terminology in which the Constitution was written is extremely important to keep in mind. It is obvious when reading the Constitution that some things are more important to the government than others. For instance, take this quote directly from Article 4, Section 4 of the US constitution. "and [the United States] shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence." This quote alone proves that the government must protect the national security. However, if we look at another quote from the Constitution regarding territory, we see that it says "Congress shall have the power to dispose of"." While in one circumstance we see the Constitution says it is a must, the other circumstance the Constitution left it up to Congress to decide where and when certain actions should take place. This proves that national security is one of the most important obligations of the government. Ct.2: Mitigation leads to National Security One of the biggest factors in determining national security is the security of the world around the nation. So if we can prevent war by mitigating conflict, then we have just protected our national security. For this I have 3 applications, the first of which is WWI. WWI is a supreme example of a time when we entered a conflict, and, in doing so, upheld our national security. 1914 was the year a raging war broke out across all the world. Even though President Wilson originally declared neutrality in the war, in 1917 the US entered the war. Those three years of delay proved to the US that staying out of the conflict would prove to be harmful to our security. We waited, and as a result, Britain was beginning to want to get us involved. They sent the Zimmerman telegram to Mexico, which told Mexico to attack the United States. Because of that, we entered the war. My second application is WWII. WWII is profound proof that mitigating conflicts will uphold our national security. WWII started in 1939, however, similar to WWI, the US did not get involved at the beginning. In December of 1941, the US officially entered WWII, due to the pearl harbor attack on December 7, 1941. These two years of delay cost the US her national security, at the pearl harbor attack. So in this case, when we didn"t mitigate the conflict, our national security was compromised. My third and final application is the First Persian Gulf War. Many Islamic leaders at the time of 1999-2001 were working on restoring the Caliphate, a complete unification of all Muslim middle eastern countries. The US saw the potential for a third world war, if this giant Caliphate was formed. So the US proceeded to mitigate the conflict. The US supported the election of Iraqi president Sadam Hussein. Hussein was a firebrand who was eager for war with Iran. Once elected, the promised conflict did indeed begin. This war between Iran and Iraq prevented the unification of the middle east. The mitigation of this conflict through the initiation of the Gulf War prevented a third world war and protected US national security. Conclusion So lets summarize. Today we have looked at my value of national security, and then dived into the intricacies of Social Contract Theory. We saw that, because of social contract, the government"s principle moral obligation is national security. We then saw that mitigating international conflicts upholds national security so thus, the government has a moral obligation to mitigate international conflict. Thank you and I strongly urge that you stand with the resolution, and say yes the United States does a moral obligation to mitigate international conflict. Cx