Restoring America’s Strength My Vision for U.S.

Foreign Policy
By Marco Rubio
America’s status as the greatest and most influential nation on earth comes with
certain inescapable realities. Among these are an abundance of enemies wishing
to undermine us, numerous allies dependent on our strength and constancy,
and the burden of knowing that every choice we make in exercising our power—
even when we choose not to exercise it at all—has tremendous human and geo-
political consequences.
This has been true for at least 70 years, but never more so than today. As the
world has grown more interconnected, American leadership has grown more
critical to maintaining global order and defending our people’s interests, and as
our economy has turned from national to international, domestic policy and for-
eign policy have become inseparable.
President Barack Obama has failed to recognize this. He entered office believing
the United States was too engaged in too many places and that globalization had
diminished the need for American power. He set to work peeling back the pro-
tective cover of American influence, stranding our allies, and deferring to the
whims of nefarious regional powers. He has vacillated between leading reck-
lessly and not leading at all, which has left the world more dangerous and Amer-
ica’s interests less secure.
It will take years for our next president to confront the residual effects of Presi-
dent Obama’s foreign and defense policies. Countering the spread of the self-de-
clared Islamic State, for example, will require a broadened coalition of regional
partners, increased U.S. involvement in the fight, and steady action to prevent
the group’s expansion to other failed and failing states. Halting Iran’s regional
expansionism and preventing its acquisition of a nuclear weapon will demand
equal urgency and care.
The Middle East, however, is far from the only region with crises. Russia’s inva-
sion of Ukraine, Beijing’s attempts to dominate the South China Sea, resurgent
despotism in South America, and the rise of new threats—from devastating cy-
berattacks to challenges in space—will all require the careful attention of Ameri-
ca’s next president.
Each challenge will be made more difficult by President Obama’s slashing of
hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget, which has left the U.S.
Army on track to be at pre–World War II levels, the U.S. Navy at pre–World
War I levels, and the U.S. Air Force with the smallest and oldest combat force in
its history. Our next president must act immediately on entering office to begin
rebuilding these capabilities.
The first and most important pillar of my foreign policy will be a renewal of
American strength. This is an idea based on a simple truth: the world is at its
safest when America is at its strongest. Physical strength and an active foreign
policy to back it up are a means of preserving peace, not promoting conflict. For-
eign involvement has never been a binary choice between perpetual war and
passive indifference. The president has many tools to advance U.S. interests,
and when used in proper balance, they will make it less likely that force will ever
be required and will thus save lives rather than cost them.
My foreign policy would restore the post-1945 bipartisan presidential tradition
of a strong and engaged America while adjusting it to meet the new realities of a
globalized world. The foreign policy I propose has three pillars. Each can be best
described through an example of a challenge we face in this new century, but
they all reveal the need for all elements of American power—for a dynamic for-
eign policy that restores strength, promotes prosperity, and steers the world to-
ward freedom.

A STRATEGY OF STRENGTH
The first and most important pillar of my foreign policy will be a renewal of
American strength. This is an idea based on a simple truth: the world is at its
safest when America is at its strongest. When America’s armed forces and intel-
ligence professionals, aided by our civilian diplomatic and foreign assistance
programs, are able to send a forceful message without firing a shot, the result is
more peace, not more conflict. Yet when the United States fails to build or dis-
play such strength, it weakens our global hand by casting doubt on our ability
and willingness to act. This doubt only encourages our adversaries to test us.
The Obama administration’s handling of Iran has demonstrated this with alarm-
ing clarity. Tehran exploited the president’s lack of strength throughout the ne-
gotiations over its nuclear program by wringing a series of dangerous conces-
sions from the United States and its partners, including the ability to enrich ura-
nium, keep the Arak and Fordow nuclear facilities open, avoid admitting its past
transgressions, and ensure a limited timeline for the agreement.
How did a nation with as little intrinsic leverage as Iran win so many conces-
sions? Part of the answer is that President Obama took off the table the largest
advantage our nation had entering into the negotiations: military strength.
Although the president frequently said that “all options are on the table” with re-
gard to Iran, his administration consistently signaled otherwise. Several senior
officials openly criticized the notion of a military strike, and the president him-
self publicly said that there could be no military solution to the Iranian nuclear
program. This was underscored by a historic reluctance to engage throughout
the Middle East, from pulling troops out of Iraq at all costs to retreating from
the stated redline on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
How did a nation with as little intrinsic leverage as Iran win so many conces-
sions? Part of the answer is that President Obama took off the table the largest
advantage our nation had entering into the negotiations: military strength. Pres-
ident Obama became so publicly opposed to military action that he sacrificed
any option that could have conceivably raised the stakes and forced the mullahs
into making major concessions. Iran recognized that it could push for greater
compromise without fear that the United States would break off the talks. The
president’s drive for a deal caused him to forsake a basic principle of diplomacy
with rogue regimes: it must be backed by the threat of force. As president, I
would have altered the basic environment of the talks. I would have maneuvered
forces in the region to signal readiness; linked the nuclear talks to Iran’s broader
conduct, from its human rights abuses to its support for terrorism and its exis-
tential threats against Israel; and pressured Tehran on all fronts, from Syria to
Yemen.
It is true that Iran, in response to these displays of strength, may have broken
off negotiations or even lashed out in the region. History, however, suggests that
even if Iran had created more trouble in the near term, increased pressure
would have eventually forced it to back down. That is exactly what happened in
1988, when Iran ended its war with Iraq and its attacks on oil tankers in the Per-
sian Gulf after the Reagan administration sent in the U.S. Navy. More recently,
after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran halted a key component of its nuclear
program.
It’s not too late to mitigate the damage of the administration’s mishandling of
Iran. By rescinding the flawed deal concluded by President Obama and reassert-
ing our presence in the Middle East, we can reverse Iran’s malign influence in
this vitally important region and prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
The security of the region, the safety of Israel, and the interests of the entire
world require an American approach toward Tehran marked by strength and
leadership rather than weakness and concession.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

The second pillar of my foreign policy is the protection of an open international
economy in an increasingly globalized world. Millions of the best jobs in this
century will depend on international trade that will be possible only when global
sea-lanes are open and sovereign nations are protected from the aggression of
larger neighbors. Thus, the prosperity of American families is tied to the safety
and stability of regions on the other side of the world, from Asia to the Middle
East to Europe.
That is why Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty is much more than a
question of where lines are drawn on the maps of eastern Europe. Russia’s an-
nexation of Crimea and efforts to sow instability in eastern Ukraine were
sparked, in no small part, by the decision of a sovereign Ukrainian government
to seek closer political and economic ties with the European Union and the
West.
Russia’s actions are a historic affront to the post–World War II global order on
which the global economy depends, and they set a disturbing precedent in a
world of rising powers with surging ambitions. Our halting and meager re-
sponse sends a message to other countries that borders can be violated and
countries invaded without serious consequences. The threat of this precedent is
profound. America should never have to ask permission from a regional power
to conduct commerce with any nation. We cannot allow the world to become a
place where countries become off-limits to us as markets and trading partners
because of violence, uncertainty, or the blustering threats of an autocratic ruler.
Russia’s actions are emblematic of a larger global trend. From the Strait of Hor-
muz to the South China Sea, authoritarian states increasingly threaten recog-
nized borders and international waters, airspace, cyberspace, and outer space as
a means of gaining leverage over their neighbors and over the United States.
Since the end of World War II, the United States has prospered in part because
it guarded those critical pathways, and U.S. engagement has a distinguished re-
cord of increasing the well-being of other countries, from Germany and Japan to
South Korea and Colombia. By failing to maintain this devotion to protecting
the lanes of commerce, the Obama administration has exposed international
markets to exploitation and chaos.

Retrenchment and retreat are not our destiny. The United States, by its pres-
ence alone, has the ability to alter balances, realign regional powers, promote
stability, and enhance liberty.
I will also isolate Russia diplomatically, expanding visa bans and asset freezes
on high-level Russian officials and pausing cooperation with Moscow on global
strategic challenges. The United States should also station U.S. combat troops in
eastern Europe to make clear that we will honor our commitments to our NATO
allies and to discourage further Russian aggression.
If that support is coupled with more robust support for the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership and a willingness to leverage America’s newly
gained status as a leader in oil and natural gas by lifting the ban on U.S. exports,
we can help guard our European allies from Russia’s attempts to use trade and
energy dependence as a weapon. This will also assist our efforts to help Uk-
raine’s leaders modernize and reform their economy and ultimately consolidate
their independence from Moscow.
By preserving Ukraine’s freedom and demonstrating that the United States will
not tolerate such threats to the global economy, the United States can begin to
deter other potential aggressors from bullying their neighbors, including an in-
creasingly ambitious China.

DEFENDING FREEDOM
Our approach to China in this century relates to the last pillar of my foreign poli-
cy: the need for moral clarity regarding America’s core values. Our devotion to
the spread of human rights and liberal democratic principles has been a part of
the fabric of our country since its founding and a beacon of hope for so many op-
pressed peoples around the globe. It is also a strategic imperative that requires
pragmatism and idealism in equal measure.
Members of the Obama administration have signaled a disturbing willingness to
ignore human rights violations in the hope of appeasing the Chinese leadership.
In the administration’s early days in 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
warned that human rights “can’t interfere” with other ostensibly more impor-
tant bilateral issues, and in the months before Xi Jinping ascended to China’s
top leadership post in 2012, Vice President Joe Biden told him that U.S. support
for human rights was merely a matter of domestic political posturing.
The best way for the United States to counter China’s expansion in East Asia is
through support for liberty. As we have fallen silent about the true nature of the
Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government has stymied democratic ef-
forts in Hong Kong, raided the offices of human rights organizations, arrested
scores of activists, redoubled its efforts to monitor and control the Internet, and
continued repressive policies in Tibet and other Chinese regions, all while rap-
idly expanding its military, threatening its neighbors, establishing military in-
stallations on disputed islands, and carrying out unprecedented cyberattacks
against America. China’s actions reveal a basic truth: the manner in which gov-
ernments treat their own citizens is indicative of the manner in which they will
treat other nations. Beijing’s repression at home and its aggressiveness abroad
are two branches of the same tree. If the United States hopes to restore stability
in East Asia, it has to speak with clarity and strength regarding the universal
rights and values that America represents.
The best way for the United States to counter China’s expansion in East Asia is
through support for liberty. The “rebalance” to Asia needs to be about more
than just physical posturing. We must stand for the principles that have allowed
Asian economies to grow so rapidly and for democracy to take root in the re-
gion. Only American leadership can show the Chinese government that its in-
creasingly aggressive regional expansionism will be countered by a reinforce-
ment of cooperation among like-minded nations in the region.
As president, I will strengthen ties with Asia’s democracies, from India to Tai-
wan. Bolstering liberty on China’s periphery can galvanize the region against
Beijing’s hostility and change China’s political future. I will also back the Chi-
nese people’s demands for unrestricted Internet access and their appeals for the
basic human right of free speech. I will engage with dissidents, reformers, and
religious rights activists, and I will reject Beijing’s attempts to block our contacts
with these champions of freedom. I will also redouble U.S. support for the
Trans-Pacific Partnership and ensure that, once the trade deal is concluded, ad-
ditional countries are able to join, expanding the creation of what will be mil-
lions of jobs here at home as well as abroad.
China will likely resist these efforts, but it is dependent on its economic relation-
ship with the United States and, despite angry outbursts, will have no choice but
to preserve it. President Ronald Reagan proved through his diplomacy with the
Soviet Union that having a productive relationship with a great power and in-
sisting on that power’s improvement of human rights are not conflicting aims. If
the United States can pursue this agenda with China even as it continues its eco-
nomic engagement, it will demonstrate that America remains committed to the
cause of freedom in our time. I believe that when true freedom for the 1.3 billion
people of China is finally attained, the impact will fundamentally change the
course of human history.

FROM DISENGAGEMENT TO LEADERSHIP

These are only three examples of the challenges the United States will face in
this century. They are all examples of problems that will require deft, multifac-
eted leadership. In addition to existing and emerging threats, we undoubtedly
will be confronted with unexpected crises in the years ahead. These unknowns
highlight the importance of establishing a fixed set of principles and objectives
to guide American leadership. After years of strategic disengagement, this is the
only way to restore global certainty regarding American commitments.

By making retrenchment his primary objective, President Obama has put the in-
ternational system at the mercy of the most ruthless aggressors. They are con-
stantly seeking to undermine the basic principles of the post-1945 world by chal-
lenging American military primacy, threatening the global commons, and
undermining liberal values. That Iran, Russia, and China are each challenging
the United States in these spheres at the same time demonstrates their mutual
desire for a departure from the postwar order.

Related Tweets
The authoritarian rulers of these nations find an open international system
deeply threatening to their exclusive grip on domestic political power. They can-
not simply be reassured or persuaded, and they will push their agendas with
whatever tools we give them the latitude to use. We cannot assume that these
states will negotiate in good faith or see it in their interest to come to an agree-
ment. If we allow the continued erosion of our military, economic, and moral
strength, we will see a further breakdown in global order cast a lengthening
shadow across our domestic prosperity and safety.
Retrenchment and retreat are not our destiny. The United States, by its pres-
ence alone, has the ability to alter balances, realign regional powers, promote
stability, and enhance liberty. Only we can form coalitions based on mutual in-
vestment and mutual sacrifice. Our sole goal has never been to remain the
world’s preeminent power. We will encourage and assist the rise of more powers
when their rise is benign or noble. We wish to be a fraternal force rather than a
paternal one.
This principle has marked the bipartisan tradition of U.S. foreign policy for the
last 70 years. Our recent departure from this tradition has brought only vio-
lence, chaos, and discord. By advancing the three pillars of my foreign policy, I
intend to restore American leadership to a world badly in need of it and defend
our interests in what I’m confident will be another American century.