Whitman College 1

6 Armed Forces Neg Addendum

Armed Forces Neg Addendum

Armed Forces Neg Addendum........................................................................................................................................1
Solvency Answers – Plan Hurts Readiness.....................................................................................................................2
Solvency Answers – Parents Prevent Recruitment.........................................................................................................3
RMA DA – Links............................................................................................................................................................4
RMA DA – Impacts.........................................................................................................................................................5
Whitman College 2
6 Armed Forces Neg Addendum

Solvency Answers – Plan Hurts Readiness

Long terms of service and exposure to foreign lands make better, more effective soldiers.
Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies in the Council on Foreign Relations, March/April 2005,
“The Struggle to Transform the Military,” Foreign Affairs, 7/24/2006, LexisNexis
Beyond technology, the British enjoyed three other key advantages. First, they had an army optimized for
colonial fighting. They did not always have more firepower than their foes, but they invariably had greater
discipline and better training. At the battle of Assaye in 1803, Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington,
defeated an Indian force that had at least three times as many musketeers and five times more artillery; in the stirring
1879 defense of Rorke's Drift in southern Africa, a garrison of 140 men held off 4,000 Zulu warriors. British
soldiers were all volunteers. They served for long terms (21 years until 1870, 12 years after that), and most were
stationed abroad throughout their service. This combination of long tenure and long exposure to foreign lands
made them formidable fighters. Their quality was further enhanced by the regimental system: officers and
enlisted men spent their careers in the same unit, which fostered group cohesion and esprit de corps. Second,
the British relied on native auxiliaries. The vast majority of the British Indian Army was made up of Indians; only
the officers and some of the noncommissioned officers were British. As late as 1931 the British were able to control
India--a land of 340 million people--with only 60,000 police and army personnel sent from home. Third, and
perhaps most important, the United Kingdom possessed an unparalleled group of colonial administrators,
intelligence agents, and soldiers--many of whom would, in their spare time, double as linguists, archaeologists, or
botanists. Adventurers such as Richard Francis Burton, Charles "Chinese" Gordon, T. E. Lawrence ("of Arabia"),
and Gertrude Bell immersed themselves in local cultures, operating to advance the empire's interests on their own,
with scant guidance from Whitehall.
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6 Armed Forces Neg Addendum

Solvency Answers – Parents Prevent Recruitment

Parents in democracies are unsupportive of allowing their children to plunge into combat

George H. Quester, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, Spring 2005,
“Demographic Trends and Military Recruitment: Surprising Possibilities” PARAMETERS, accessed July 23, 2006,
p. 27-40, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/05spring/quester.htm

Almost any country will be averse to suffering casualties; only the most psychopathic dictator would enjoy seeing
his own troops killed and wounded. But it is more generally argued that democracies will be more averse to such
casualties than non-representative regimes. The mothers and fathers of the people exposed to combat
presumably will vote against any incumbent who plunges into combat needlessly.
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6 Armed Forces Neg Addendum

RMA DA – Links
Changes in demographics will require a more specialized and modern military.

George H. Quester, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, Spring 2005,
“Demographic Trends and Military Recruitment: Surprising Possibilities” PARAMETERS, accessed July 23, 2006,
p. 27-40, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/05spring/quester.htm

The immediate drive for this would be the demographic factor just noted: the relative shortage of “military-age”
people each year, as compared to the total population of the country, and as compared to the perceived need for a
military in terms of outside threats to the nation. Related to this is the change in the nature of the technology
used in combat, and in the kind of human operator required. If the trends continue by which more and more of
the battlefield exchange will be automated in an application of advanced technology, a smaller fraction of the
armed services will require youth and physical vigor, and a larger portion may instead require maturity,
experience, and technological expertise.
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6 Armed Forces Neg Addendum

RMA DA – Impacts
Historically, a military’s greatest strength is their advanced technology.
Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies in the Council on Foreign Relations, March/April 2005,
“The Struggle to Transform the Military,” Foreign Affairs, 7/24/2006, LexisNexis
The British Empire's most easily emulated strength was advanced technology, a product of the Industrial
Revolution. The Royal Navy was always near the forefront of technological development, such as the adoption
in the nineteenth century of steam-powered steel warships that fired high-explosive rounds. The army usually
lagged behind its rivals in Europe but always had a decisive edge over tribal adversaries, thanks to such weaponry as
rapid-firing Maxim guns and Lee-Metford repeating rifles. Gunboats and railroads allowed the movement of men
and supplies deep into the interior of inhospitable environments in places such as China and Africa. The British also
benefited from the extensive use of telegraph lines and advances in medical science: quinine pills, for example,
helped to conquer malaria, which had previously turned tropical climes into a "white man's grave."