Obama Vows US Military Will Remain World’s Strongest

President Says Military Must Improve Civilian Aid, Prepare for "Unconventional Enemies"

President Barack Obama declared today that the United States “will maintain our military dominance. We will have the strongest armed forces in the history of the world. And we will do whatever it takes to sustain our technological advantage and to invest in the capabilities that we need to protect our interests and to defeat and deter any conventional enemy.”

The news hardly comes as an enormous surprise, given the United States spends nearly as much on its military as the rest of the world put together, yet that the new president felt the need to make such a statement at all may be a telling sign that his foreign policy agenda is going to involve a lot of military dominance the world over.

Obama elaborated on the statement, also declaring that he intended to continue the Bush Administration’s program to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, as well as improving the military’s ability to deliver civilian aid and to prepare for what he described as “unconventional enemies.”

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.