Resolved: That, on balance, the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) has had a positive i

There are two central issues in this round: safety and economy. The pro is winning both. Safety: My opponent conceded that India helps ensure the safety of Americans through aiding its counterterrorism, so now I will provide examples as to how the other three BRIC countries help us. ->But first why don't we closely examine those links he put up. If we read his article closely, it explicitly states that there is no evidence that Hezbollah wields Russian weapons: "Lavrov responded by saying that Russia has no knowledge of Hezbollah possessing Russian weapons, and that if Israel has any information on the topic, Russia would be happy to look into it." Despite its bad title, the article changes its tone: "Israel and Russia have some common goals, like fighting terrorism." It concludes: "Moscow was Syria's strongest backer in its struggle with Israel during the Communist era, but Russia has more recently been improving ties with Israel. Russia advised Syria not seek action against Israel at the United Nations Security Council after the Israeli raid on its territory." Thus, his own evidence helps me! With Russia's rise, they are becoming friendlier with our allies rather than resorting to futile proxy war policies and funneling weapons. About the other link, Putin's threats are much more bark than bite, and with their rise, our relations have improved since the Cold War (http://www.upi.com...). China's threats to Taiwan are also ancient and unlikely to matter at all in the near future. Chino-Taiwanese relations are even improving (http://www.upi.com...). I'll show you how China, Russia, and Brazil aid U.S. safety to put this argument into the bag. ->Let's look at how China helps us. Because China trades with us a lot, a major threat to us is terrorists smuggling a nuclear weapon into the U.S. through our trade ports via our most important and biggest trading partner: China. So, we signed the Container Security Initiative with them, which prevents terrorists from the smuggling of WMDs as U.S. costoms officials are now allowed and aided in checking the 3 million containers leaving China. Also, Chinese lab workers have developed cures to pathogens that have saved Americans lives. So they are helping us guarantee what matters the most: citizen safety. ->India and China save U.S. lives, so let's look at Russia. Russia, a country with a powerful military, is a crucial ally in our war on terror. We signed with them the "Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism." Without Russia's participation, we wouldn't have gotten over 50 important countries to sign the deal. This is keeping U.S. lives safe from the risk of radiological attacks. Because they have their own Chechenyan terrorists, Russia empathizes with the U.S. when it comes to the war on terror, and is a powerful ally that keeps our citizens safe. (Nina Hachigan, Stanford University, http://www.stanleyfoundation.org...) In summary, we can see that when it comes to the issues that really matter, like the safety of our citizens, BRIC is our stauch ally. Although we may disagree on many issues and have political bickering, what really matters is that we are all allies that wish to defeat the threats that harm our countries: like terrorism and disease. The U.S. cannot deal with these threats by itself, unlike what my opponent believes. Wolfgang Nowak, Spokesman of the Executive Board of the Alfred Herrhausen Society, puts this idea perfectly: "We are living in an era without a single, dominant world power. The globe is beset by crises—climate change, resource scarcity, food and financial crises, nuclear proliferation, and failing states. No one country can devise solutions to address these kinds of problems. Even the United Nations is not up to the task. Indeed, as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted at the Progressive Governance Conference in April in London, the international organizations founded in the wake of World War II no longer meet today's needs." (http://www.ip...) According to Fareed Zakaria, the rising influence of the BRICs can help us. In other words, this multipolarity is good, not bad, as the BRICs are assuring us the most important thing: the safety of our citizens. (http://www.newsweek.com...) Also, I must add that our primacy and a false belief in our own power ("oh we'll win this war, we're the best") has gotten us into the war in Iraq and has led to 4000 American people dying. All my opponent guarantees you is the deaths of 4000 American people due to a unipolar world blinding America into arrogance, while I guarantee you a stable multipolar world, where we have strong allies like the BRICs to keep you, the average American, safe from harm. Economy: ->My economic impacts outweigh his economic harms. He cited 400 billion dollars lost because of a trade deficit. According to my previous analysis, this is bogus, but even if it isn't, American consumers save $900 billion off cheap imports from BRIC, which according to the multiplier effect, an economics formula, translates to a $2.7 trillion increase in GDP over this last decade. (Because savings for consumers translates to economic growth). If you apply the multiplier effect, an economics formula, $900 billion in consumer savings begets a $2.7 GDP increase (according to an economist major, my math is right). This impact FAR outweighs his tiny $400 billion impact. He may believe that he refuted this argument, but his response is entirely inadequate, as if he had looked more closely at my case, he would have realized that I did NOT get my statistic from Mr. Krol, I got it from Subhash Chandra Jain's book, which cited a credible statistic from Morgan Stanley which says that China ALONE, saves American consumers $600 billion dollars. Contrary to his response, this is over the past decade, which is what I defined as "the rise of BRIC." With the benefits of my 1st contention, I can quite easily outweigh his tiny benefits in his 2nd contention. Here's where I got my Morgan Stanley statistic (this link is not Jain's, but is even more credible) -> http://www.moneyweb.co.za.... I should win this round hands-down based on this statistic. He again believes that a significant amount of jobs were lost. I should remind him of my previous responses to his assertions, which he had failed to address in his previous speech. According to economist Charles Schultze, Chairman of the CEA under President Carter, this loss of thousands of jobs, he cites 353,000, is MINISCULE compared to our working population of 150 million. This doesn't even matter! To add credibility behind my statement, even Ben Bernanke, the Head of the Federal Reserve, has stated that job losses due to outsourcing and to other countries is miniscule compared to the real cause: corporate corruption and our financial meltdown. It is common knowledge that companies are laying off and cutting costs because people have stopped buying due to our recession. It is not BRIC causing this, so your impact is miniscule. Thus, my opponent's 353,000 jobs impact is miniscule in the first place, and the loss of an insignificant amount of manufacturing jobs doesn't matter in the switch to a service economy with higher paying jobs. So I have outweighed his tiny impact and I urge my opponent not to make any new arguments or statistics, as it's unfair because I cannot respond to it. In conclusion, on a net benefits scale, the pro should win. BRIC gives us a $2.7 trillion GDP increase and makes America a safer place by helping us with counterterrorism and disease-prevention. I have the impacts of safety and economic benefits on my side, outweighing my opponent.