President Clinton plans to ask for the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War in the budget he sends to Congress next month.
Responding to demands from top military commanders, Mr Clinton's fiscal year 2000 budget will include a boost in spending on the armed forces of $12 billion (£8 billion) and a total increase of about $110 billion over the next six years, according to administration and Pentagon officials. If approved by Congress, the increase would fund the largest military pay increase since 1984 and a round of new, sophisticated jet fighters, attack helicopters and warships. It would be less than the $148 billion increase sought by the Defence Department.
"We must undertake this effort today so that our nation will remain strong and secure tomorrow," Mr Clinton said at the weekend in his weekly radio address. "The more we ask, the greater our responsibility to give our troops the support and training and equipment they need."
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 requires that any increase in spending in one area be offset by cuts in spending in another part of the budget. Administration officials declined to say how they would come up with the additional money. "People can be assured that we will continue to fully meet our domestic priorities," one official said.
Over the past few months, US military chiefs, led by the Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, held a series of meetings with Mr Clinton to argue for the increase. In those meetings, the commanders argued that the increase was necessary to boost pay and retirement benefits to retain mid-level officers and non-commissioned officers and to maintain and improve the most sophisticated arsenal in the world.
Conservative members of Congress have repeatedly criticised Mr Clinton for giving the military a range of new missions - including peacekeeping in Bosnia and Haiti, full-time air patrols over Iraq, and anti-drug efforts - without the necessary funding.
Russia and China are second behind the United States in military spending, each allocating about $50 billion a year, according to US defence analysts.