In their debate on foreign policy Monday night, President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney voiced nearly identical positions in support of war, illegal killings and imperialist intervention across the globe.

With just two weeks until the election, this third and final presidential debate made it clear that the US political establishment is laying the groundwork for new military interventions in the aftermath of November 6, and that the American people will have no means of expressing at the ballot box their opposition to an escalation of global militarism.

While both Obama and Romney threw in empty rhetoric about “nation-building at home” and bringing back “good jobs and rising take-home pay,” the overwhelming theme of this third debate was US imperialism’s determination to utilize its military superiority to counter the decline of American capitalism’s position in the world economy and offset the deepening crisis that began with the Wall Street meltdown of 2008.