Military Will Withstand Cuts, Obama Says President Obama greeted graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy on Wednesday. COLORADO SPRINGS - President Obama vowed on Wednesday to keep the military strong even as he winds down the wars of the last decade and takes the budget knife to Pentagon spending in an age of increasing government austerity. Addressing the graduating cadets of the Air Force Academy, Mr. Obama said spending cuts were inevitable for the armed forces but he promised to guard against reductions that would compromise the nation's security. Dismissing talk of national decline, he described an "American century" in which the United States would continue to flourish. "Yes, as today's wars end, our military, and our Air Force, will be leaner," he told a stadium filled with the blue uniforms of the next generation of pilots and other officers. But as commander in chief, I will not allow us to make the mistakes of the past. We still face very serious threats. As we've seen in recent weeks, with Al Qaeda in Yemen, there are still terrorists who seek to kill our citizens. He added: "We'll keep our military, and our Air Force, fast and flexible and versatile. We will maintain our military superiority in all areas - air, land, sea, space and cyber. Mr. Obama's commencement address was his first at a military academy since the last American troops left Iraq, ending nearly nine years of conflict, and came just days after he agreed with NATO allies on a plan to close out the combat mission in Afghanistan. In effect, he used the occasion to outline a vision for the next stage in the nation's struggle against terrorism, one that shifts away from large commitments of ground troops and relies more on diplomatic and economic power while drawing on more help from allies. "You are the first class in nine years that will graduate into a world where there are no Americans fighting in Iraq," Mr. Obama said. For the first time in your lives - and thanks to Air Force personnel who did their part - Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to our country. We've put Al Qaeda on the path to defeat. And you are the first graduates since 9/11 who can clearly see how we'll end the war in Afghanistan. He said that his policies would end those wars while still making the country safer, and he noted that the graduates would have fewer deployments and more time to train and rest between missions than their predecessors. But Mr. Obama went into little detail about how financial restraints would affect the Air Force and the military at large. He has proposed a five-year spending plan for the Pentagon that includes nearly $480 billion in cuts, but that amount could increase sharply if his administration and Congress do not reach agreement on a plan to avoid deeper automatic cuts currently programmed into law. Republicans have said Mr. Obama is already cutting the armed forces too deeply. A budget plan released by the Obama administration in February called for reducing active-duty Air Force personnel by 3,900 as well as an additional 6,000 from the reserves and National Guard. Under that plan, about 500 aircraft would be retired as well. Since then, the guard's political patrons have fought back and persuaded Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to reverse some of those cuts, foreshadowing continued struggles in the months and years ahead over how to divvy up scarcer resources. Mr. Obama also used the stage of the academy to implicitly rebut Republican critics who accuse him of not believing in American exceptionalism, a charge made most prominently by former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the party's presumptive presidential nominee. Mr. Obama cited previous eras when the nation feared decline, including after Pearl Harbor, the Vietnam War and the rise of Asian economies in the 1980s. Repeatedly using the phrase "I see an American century," he asserted that the country's future was bright because of his policies. "I see an American century because we have the resilience to make it through these tough economic times," he said, promising to invest in education and innovation while bringing down deficits. We need to get on with nation-building here at home. I know we can, because we're still the largest, most dynamic, most innovative economy in the world. And no matter what challenges we may face, we wouldn't trade places with any other nation on earth.