Donald Trump lays out non-interventionist US military policy; Barack Obama defends legacy
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President-elect Donald Trump has laid out a US military policy that would avoid unnecessary interventions in foreign conflicts and instead focus heavily on defeating the Islamic State militancy.
Key points:
- Donald Trump says US must stop trying to topple foreign regimes
- The President-elect says he wants to boost military spending
- Barack Obama makes his final national security address
In the latest stop on a "thank you" tour of states critical to his November 8 election win, Mr Trump introduced his choice for defence secretary, General James Mattis, to a large crowd in Fayetteville near the Fort Bragg military base, which has deployed soldiers to 90 countries around the world.
"We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with," Mr Trump said.
"Instead, our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying ISIS, and we will."
Mr Trump's rhetoric was similar to what he said during the election campaign when he railed against the war in Iraq.
In Fayetteville, he vowed a strong rebuilding of the US military, which he suggested has been stretched too thin.
Instead of investing in wars, he said, he would spend money to build up America's aging roads, bridges and airports.
Even so, Mr Trump said he wanted to boost spending on the military. To help pay for his build-up, Mr Trump pledged to seek congressional approval for lifting caps on defence spending.
"We don't want to have a depleted military because we're all over the place fighting in areas that we shouldn't be fighting in. It's not going to be depleted any longer," he said.
Mr Trump said any country that shared these goals would be considered a US partner.
"We don't forget. We want to strengthen old friendships and seek out new friendships," he said.
He said the policy of "intervention and chaos" must come to an end.
Obama defends security record
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama used his last major national security address to defend his legacy, saying he's made the country safer while upholding international law.
Mr Obama argued that his administration had been able to make Al Qaeda "a shadow of its former self" and had put Islamic State on its heels, but said terrorism would remain a threat to the United States.
"Rather than offer false promises that we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs or deploying more and more troops or fencing ourselves off from the rest of the world, we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained," Mr Obama said in a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
Mr Obama spoke of the importance of adhering to American laws and values and against reinstating the use of waterboarding or imposing a religious test on immigrants, two positions that Mr Trump has supported in the past.
"The whole objective of these terrorists is to scare us into changing who we are and our democracy," Mr Obama said.
Reuters
Topics: us-elections, government-and-politics, world-politics, defence-and-national-security, defence-forces, united-states
