Many people think that the United States should stop world policing. An online poll showed that 70% of the people said stop and only 30% said it’s good. The US is getting to too many fights with other countries that we could have avoided if we just minded our own business and tried to fix the problems at home it would be better. The US needs to stop world policing because it cost many lives, we go for wrong reasons, we mess up other countries and it cost lots of money.

World policing the world has cost the US millions of lives. In Vietnam, the US lost over 58,000 lives out of 2.7 million deployed. The Vietnam War was a big loss of money and life. 58,220 US servicemen died in that war, 40,934 of them died in combat. The Vietnam War is still harming US countrymen. The veterans are ill because of the use of chemical defoliation and suffer from PTSD. In Iraq from 2003-2011, 4,500 US troops were killed and like the Vietnam, suffer from PTSD.

The US involvement in Somalia in 1993 started as a humanitarian mission then became a mission to fix the government, and arrest Somali warlord Aidid. The US lost 18 soldiers in a mission that was supposed to last 30-45 minutes. The Invasion of Panama is where we invaded to ‘help’ the government process and get a Communist leader from being elected.

The US went to that war in Vietnam because we wanted to stop Communism, while they never posed a direct threat to the US like al-Qaeda or likewise .We go to war over oil, but not for any good reasons like a threat to national security. Al-Qaeda was a threat to national security because they attacked us on US soil. Iraq was a mess; there were no WMDs and no evidence showing that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that the nuclear program had restarted since the Persian Gulf War. Obama was against the war in Iraq and called it a dumb, rash war. ”But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States…” that is a quote from Obama on October 2, 2002 in Chicago. This war cost more than 4,400 US troops their lives for nothing but oil.

On the other hand, Kim Jung Un and North Korea have nuclear weapons, have tested them and have threated the US with them before and we go to war over other things like a civil war in another country (I am not saying we should go to war with North Korea, but...). We can’t go around the world making democracy in different countries.

When America goes to another country and starts a war then leaves it in a wreck is not okay. You leave something better than you found it is the goal. The US left Iraq in chaos and that spawned ISIS. The US made a big mess and cause an even bigger mess by making ISIS. Thankfully we are fixing the ISIS mess.

When you look at Korea, the two countries have been changed by the war. The South Koreans were one of the poorest economies in the world after the war while trying to restabilize. Although they are now the fourth largest economy in Asia, it was a rough start. North Korea was the opposite, started out good and then they are now really poor after the fall of the Soviet Union. If we intervene on other wars like that, that don’t pose a direct threat to national security, it will end up the same.

If you look at the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq, it is similar in the fact that the US devastated the basic infustructure and made millions flee their homes and thousands of refugees were fleeing the country. If there is a conflict, we should just stay out of it unless they ‘throw the first punch’.

The last reason is that war is expensive. The Iraq War cost up to $2.2 trillion dollars, that’s 11.17% of our current national debt. The US national debt is at $19.7 trillion and growing by the second. The Iraq War has cost $1.7 billion plus $490 billion in war veterans benefits. The US is burying themselves in a hole by going to war with other countries. If you have the population of 324,118,787 and you split the cost of the war up you have $6,756.78 per person (including that $490 billion). That's a lot, around the price of a new dirt bike.

The budget for the Department of Education for FY 2017 is 11% of the Department of Defense. That's a contrast right there. In my opinion, the education system should have way more funding and the Department of Defense needs to stop spending so much money on war and the military (I think that the military is great and I want to go in the military it just needs to spend a little less).

“The U.S. has paid for its wars either through debt (World War II, Cold War, Afghanistan/Iraq), taxation (Korean War) or inflation (Vietnam)… Regardless of the way a war is financed, the overall macroeconomic effect on the economy tends to be negative.” That is a quote from the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Although some of these wars are for good reason (WWII, Afghanistan, Cold War-ish) the data shows that you that the US usually have negative effects when we go to war and increase tax, military spending and production of aircraft, ammunition and uniforms, not other important items for other parts of the population like clothing and food.

Most wars are hard on the US economy and have negative effects and need to be avoid unless we are attacked like Pearl Harbor. That could help our economy grow and save lots of money for other things like ending poverty.

The opposition may say that the US needs to be the world police because everyone needs police and who else will do it? Also, how will the president do these things? Doesn't the US need the Congress to approve a war?

Well to answer the first question, the US needs to let the UN do what they were created to do, and to also spearhead strengthening of the UN, but that's a whole different paper.

The US hasn't declared war with another county since Roosevelt did in 1941. The thing is that the president can issue and executive order to deploy troops for up to 30 days. After that Congress can the renew that and that is how we’ve been fight a war with Afghanistan without actually ‘going to war’. So yes you need Congress’s approval for defense spending and to roll over the 30 day executive order, but obviously that isn’t that hard since Democratic president has done it for eight years with a Republican majority in Congress. I want it to be easy to act but we need to make really good decisions.

Imagine if, in your town, every single conflict the police would intervene to stop it. Now imagine the world like that. That’s what may happen if we continue down our path that were on. The United States needs to stop world policing and being so pro-war because it cost way too much and it’s bad for our economy, it is costing thousands of Americans their lives and it totally devastates other countries after we have left. Will you be the president that is going to stop our legacy of the police of the world?