ates leads the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. And so we must. We must lead by building a 21st century military to ensure the security of our people and advance the security of all people. (Emphasis added) expansive vision for what the United States can and should do is consistent with Obama s endorsement of a permanent increase in the size of the military, an additional 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines. of the other candidates aspiring for the nomination have embraced the idea of ??growing the military, and the logic is consistent with Obama s accurate observation that the war in Afghanistan and the ill-advised invasion of Iraq have clearly demonstrated the consequences of underestimating the number of troops required to fight two wars and defend our homeland. there are two ways to solve this problem - by either restraining the impulse to intervene militarily or by increasing the military. Obama conceded as much. Of course, he explained, how we use our armed forces matters just as much as how they are prepared. President Obama have sent troops to Panama? To Somalia? To Haiti? Would he have declared, as George H.W. Bush did, that Saddam s aggression against Kuwait would not stand ?, the underlying message of his speech, and of his specific proposals, implies a willingness to use force abroad that might be nearly indistinguishable from that of the current occupant of the White House. that explains why the junior senator from Illinois won praise from Robert Kagan, the Washington Post columnist. He seemed genuinely excited about Obama s embrace of a highly activist foreign policy. had a hand in shaping that policy in the mid - 1990s, when he (along with William Kristol) called for the United States to play the role of benevolent global hegemon - ie world s policeman. Iraq war and other global misadventures have revealed that being the world s cop is a costly undertaking. although 76% of Americans, according to a recent poll taken by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion, say that the United States is playing the role of world policeman more than it should be, Kagan believes that he has found yet another politician who believes the United States doesn t play the role often enough - hence his praise for Obama the Interventionist.
