The Public Forum Debate topic for February 2008 is:

Resolved: That, on balance, the rise of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) has had a positive impact on the United States.

It’s an interesting topic and one I hadn’t thought about before.

The question is, will we be able to attain the global ideal where nations work together to surpass what any individual nation can achieve on its own?  Or, would we be better off maintaining United States hegemony to protect our interests as power ebs and flows across rising nations, specifically BRIC.

It’s difficult to look at BRIC as a whole, when the cold war with Russia is still so clear in our collective memory.  Can the US and Russia come together on issues?  Or are we destined to remain cold war enemies in this century?

• Will Russia try to make a land grab and claim the Arctic and all the natural resources that currently lay under the ice?
• Will Russia continue supporting cyber-terrorism against the US and other NATO countries?
• Can we get past the alliance against the U.S. between Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin and the Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

I’m still thinking about my arguments, and I’ll post more later this week.