Explanation - Military Aid: Feminism
By: Jaya Nayar
The latest card file we released was for the Jan-Feb LD topic: “Resolved: The United States ought not provide military aid to authoritarian regimes.”
While this topic provides a strong basis for the aff to criticize militarism, we wanted to try to make the card file as specific as possible to military aid, and how it affects women. This means the card file is not all-inclusive of fem positions on this topic (for example, fem IR is a very good argument to read for this resolution), but instead wants to provide a starting point for specific research tailored to military aid and authoritarian regimes.
The Aff
Under the masculine hostage-taking header, there is evidence criticizing the ways in which women are used as pawns to justify war. For example, one of the ways Bush convinced Americans to support the Iraq War was by saying “all the little ladies over there really need our protection.” This proves how gender is inextricably connected to war making and how women are always used as pawns, but their interests are never truly taken into account (ie, US soldiers did awful things to women during the Iraq War).
Under the securitization header, the evidence there criticizes securitization by saying that it’s only a ploy elites use to generate support for war so they can make money off of government contracts, for example. This means DAs that say “Russia is a big, bad threat and only prolonged US involvement through military aid will prevent them from filling-in and starting a regional war,” are only examples of propaganda and are something you can critique with this card. The evidence also delves into the everyday impacts of war and how it affects women, and this is offense for the aff because it proves that we should try to decrease militarism, rather than continue to give military aid, which only gets used to start wars.
Under the violence against women header, this one is pretty obvious in that it explains the ways in which military aid gets used by authoritarian regimes to repress women.
Under the spreads internationally header, the evidence explains how through US military aid, we export our patriarchal practices to other nations, and essentially encourage those nations to repress their female population. It also discusses the ways in which arms sales, themselves, are expressions of hegemonic masculinity as we try to show off to other nations just how much power the US has and how aggressive we will be if double-crossed.
Under the tradeoff header, this one is also pretty obvious because it says that money that we spend on military aid (literally billions of dollars), should instead be funneled into community-building programs or humanitarian aid to help minorities currently suffering.
Under the counter-narcotics: incarceration header, the evidence would really only apply to an aff about getting rid of counter-narcotics military aid, because that aid only gets used to put women behind bars.
Aside from the last header, most of these cards are pretty generic and could be used in any aff that criticizes militarism.
The Neg
This section is much smaller because the aff side of this topic is far more critical than the neg side, in that the aff gets to say the US is doing something really bad right now, and it gets to say militarization is bad.
However, the card in here says that the US has used military aid to help girls who were kidnapped. It could potentially be used for a PIC, although finding a solvency advocate will be pretty tough.