Errrr, I'm in a debate competition and the motion of the debate is ' This house believes that the sovereignty of a country depends on a strong economy rather than a strong military'

I'm on the opposition team and I seriously don't know what to say. Please help. I need to know why the sovereignty of a country is better off with a strong military rather than a strong economy.
:confused:

You might want to argue that as long as the strong military is used by the sovereignty to defend the land from outside invaders (and that it's never to be used against the citizens), then this strong military, in turn, allows the citizens to feel safe enough to concentrate on the creation a strong economy. It is a one necessarily precedes the other type of argument that is not without some risk.

Here is the risk: let's hope the opposite team doesn't argue that with a strong economy, the sovereignty is then able to fund a strong military and therefore create a drawn in the debate! LOL

What would be most quick to cause a revolution amongst the people might be another approach that would show you how to argue this too. You would have course have to reason it out with all the different types of sovereignty there are since the type is unknown in your example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty

Thanks for posting and I hope that spurs some thoughts for you.

Wow, but the question still stands, how does the sovereignty of a country depend on a strong military rather than a strong economy apart from protecting the country.

But still, thank you very much for replying
:)

I was hoping not to do the whole assignment but rather just offer a little boost. It is after all your homework, isn't it? :p

Lol that would be nice

Sovereignty depends neither on military nor economy. The right to sovereignty depends on legitimacy of ownership. On the other hand, you might be using the word "depends" in a different manner than I am using it. If so, then I would say that both economy and military are inextricably interdependent. The USA has a strong military because it has a strong economy which can create, sustain, and perpetuate it. If it's sovereignty is challenged it can respond effectively militarily. So the economy makes a strong military possible then the economy would take presedence over the military in relation to sustaining territorial sovereignty.