Promises about Foreign Policy on Obameter

"Barack Obama will strengthen the training and equipping of the Afghan army and police and increase Afghan participation in U.S. and NATO missions, so that there is more of an Afghan face on security."

"As president, Barack Obama would condition U.S. military aid to Pakistan on their making progress to close down the training camps, evict foreign fighters, and prevent the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base to strike inside of Afghanistan. ... Obama also will increase aid to Pakistan for development and secular education to counter extremists."

"Overseas, Barack Obama will establish a Shared Security Partnership Program to invest $5 billion over three years to improve cooperation between U.S. and foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This program will include information sharing, funding for training, operations, border security, anti-corruption programs, technology, and the targeting of terrorist financing. And this effort will focus on helping our partners succeed without repressive tactics, because brutality breeds terror, it does not defeat it."

"Barack Obama would target this new spending towards strategic goals, including helping the world's weakest states to build democratic institutions, foster healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty and generate wealth."

Barack Obama would use part of increased U.S. assistance to establish a $2 billion Global Education Fund to "offer an alternative to extremist schools."

"Modeled on the successful program the United States launched in Germany following World War II, America Houses would offer state-of-the-art English-language training programs, discussions, and a wide selection of current periodicals, newspapers, and literature. They would offer free Internet access and moderated programs that promote direct exchange with Americans through the use of modern information technology."

"Obama also would launch a new 'America's Voice Corps' to rapidly recruit and train fluent speakers of local languages (Arabic, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa, Farsi, Urdu, and Turkish) with public diplomacy skills, who can ensure our voice is heard in the mass media and in our efforts on the ground."

"Obama will personally lead diplomacy efforts beginning with a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration. He will make clear that we are not at war with Islam, that we will stand with those who are willing to stand up for their future, and that we need their effort to defeat the prophets of hate and violence."

"From both a moral standpoint and a practical standpoint, torture is wrong. Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries."

"From both a moral standpoint and a practical standpoint, torture is wrong. Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries."

"As president, Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo."

"He will reject the Military Commissions Act, which allowed the U.S. to circumvent Geneva Conventions in the handling of detainees. He will develop a fair and thorough process based on the Uniform Code of Military Justice to distinguish between those prisoners who should be prosecuted for their crimes, those who can't be prosecuted but who can be held in a manner consistent with the laws of war, and those who should be released or transferred to their home countries."

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will institutionalize the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a global initiative aimed at stopping shipments of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, and related materials worldwide. They will expand the responsibilities of its members, not only in stopping illicit nuclear shipments, but also in eradicating nuclear black market networks. A stronger PSI will produce greater international intelligence and police cooperation, maintain tougher export controls and criminal penalties for violations in countries around the world, and apply the tools developed to combat terrorist financing to shut down proliferators' financial networks."

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will convene a summit in 2009 (and regularly thereafter) of leaders of Permanent Members of the UN Security Council and other key countries to agree on implementing many of these measures on a global basis."

"The IAEA is understaffed and underresourced at a time when demand for its expertise are growing. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will seek to ensure that the Agency gets the authority, information, people, and technology it needs to do its job. They will work to double the IAEA budget in the next four years (increasing the U.S. annual share to about $225 million). They will press countries to adopt the "Additional Protocol," -- which grants the IAEA the right to conduct more intrusive inspections, including at undeclared facilities — and seek agreement among members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group not to transfer nuclear technology to NPT countries that have not adopted the Additional Protocol. They will work to gain agreement on effective global standards for nuclear safety and security. And they will call for establishing IAEA verification procedures that go beyond the Additional Protocol to strengthen the agency's ability to detect clandestine facilities and activities."

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will seek deep, verifiable reductions in all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons — whether deployed or non-deployed, whether strategic or non-strategic — and work with other nuclear powers to reduce global stockpiles dramatically by the end of an Obama presidency."

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work to secure Russia's agreement to extend essential monitoring and verification provisions of the START I Treaty before it expires in December 2009."

Obama will "immediately stand down all nuclear forces to be reduced under the Moscow Treaty and urge Russia to do the same."

"The United States has maintained a moratorium on testing since 1992. It signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, but it has not been ratified yet. Since the U.S. Senate last considered the treaty in 1999, significant progress has been made in our verification capability to detect nuclear explosions, even at extremely low yields, and to ensure confidence in the reliability of our nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing."

"Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work with our allies and other countries to achieve a successful outcome in 2010 that strengthens the NPT. The initiatives Barack Obama and Joe Biden pledge to undertake to enhance nuclear security and further U.S. commitments under the treaty will contribute greatly to that effort."