Nocember Topic Reaction!
The 2022 “Nocember” (November/December) public forum topic is one of the most broad and far-reaching topics of recent years. It is “resolved: the United States’ strategy of Great Power Competition produces more benefits than harms.” Upon first viewing this resolution, one of the first questions that comes to mind is “what is the ‘Great Power Competition strategy?”
As it turns out, an answer is hard to come by. It turns out that this strategy is actually quite ambiguous, which leaves a lot of the resolution up to interpretation. Generally speaking, this resolution refers to the pursuit by various global superpowers of “distinct strategies… to carve out their own spheres of influence and vision for the international order” (CSIS). Even this is very unspecific. Thus, definitions as to what it means to follow a “Great Power Competition strategy” will be critical to the debate itself.
In addition, since the resolution implies that the U.S. has already been following a strategy of Great Power Competition, it is difficult to understand what a hypothetical alternative will entail. In my opinion, this alternative is essential to the debate, since even if the strategy of Great Power Competition is harmful, if the most likely alternative is comparatively more harmful, then the status-quo is net-beneficial. Is the alternative that the U.S. does not take militaristic action in global affairs and instead pursues an isolationist policy? If so, it is incredibly likely that U.S. adversaries – mainly China and Russia – would be even more dominant on the global stage. Is the alternative offshore balancing? Is it prioritizing diplomacy with international adversaries? Obviously, this answer is up to debate. In addition, if the U.S. does not pursue a Great Power Competition strategy, how would this change the strategy that other nations use? This question is also fundamental to a high-level debate.
In terms of weighing, there are going to be many high-scope, high-severity impacts. Since this is a military topic, there will be many, many arguments on both sides of the debate, likely spanning all regions of Earth. At tournaments, a debater is likely to see both hyper-specific arguments (regarding specific circumstances in one or a few nations/regions), as well as general cases about global politics/conflict. For this reason, this topic may require extensive knowledge or research on a vast multitude of places, and will require significant preparation. Those with an advanced understanding of global history, military strategy, politics, and geography will be at a natural advantage, since that knowledge will be incredibly beneficial in coming up with analytic responses/weighing.
GOOD LUCK!
