McCain and Obama share some military policy goals

By Andrew Gray - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Under the next U.S. president, the military will grow, fewer troops will be in Iraq, more will go to Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay prison will close.

Those visions are shared by John McCain and Barack Obama, the two candidates for the November election, demonstrating a large measure of agreement on how to run the world's only superpower military despite their public clashes over issues such as Iraq.

Both Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, and McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, support a large, strong and well-funded military and have made clear they are willing to use it to protect U.S. interests -- alone if necessary.

"There is a consensus on the attitude towards the military between McCain and Obama," said Josef Braml, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

"The United States is looking for allies, but when it comes to certain security issues -- the protection of the United States and Israel -- neither of the two has left any doubt over the fact that they are willing to use military action unilaterally," he said.

Advisers to both candidates say they do not foresee cuts in the defense budget, at least in the short-term.

At more than $600 billion this year, U.S. defense spending accounts for about half the global total and has risen by about 85 percent under President George W. Bush, who initiated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Both McCain and Obama also support continuing a program begun under Bush to expand the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, severely strained by the two wars, to a combined strength of some 750,000 active-duty troops.

McCain favors going further, with up to 900,000 personnel. But neither candidate supports a draft, which military officers also strongly oppose.

IRAQ DIFFERENCES NARROW

The deeply unpopular Iraq war was long expected to be a major campaign theme and it may still be significant. But a big decline in violence there has taken some of the heat out of the issue and the candidates' differences have narrowed.

Both now foresee troop cuts in Iraq, even if they disagree on the reasons for them.

Obama says forces must be freed up to tackle worsening insurgent violence in Afghanistan, which he views -- together with lawless border areas of Pakistan -- as the central front in America's fight against Islamist militants.

He has a goal of withdrawing all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. But he has signaled flexibility and wants to keep a "residual force" in Iraq, likely to consist of tens of thousands of troops.

McCain says Iraq is where al Qaeda has chosen to fight the United States and must have priority. But he too predicts troop cuts in Iraq, based on security gains there.