Introducing the 'Rubio doctrine'

NEW YORK—In his first major foreign policy speech since declaring himself a presidential candidate in 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went after both President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an area where they are currently most vulnerable.

To a packed house and an overflow room at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York’s Upper East Side, Rubio simply recited the global news of the past year to underscore the failure of U.S. foreign policy: Russia has invaded Ukraine (one audience member in the question-and-answer time afterward pointed out that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had warned of Russia’s threat in 2012 and everyone had “laughed at him”), Iraq has fallen apart, ISIS is attempting to establish a “caliphate,” hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died, the world has seen the “largest migration of refugees since World War II,” and China has aggressively expanded its military presence in the South and East China seas.

This is the Democrats’ vulnerability. Rubio’s vulnerability is that he has no experience enacting foreign policy beyond his four years in the Senate. In this speech he was light on specifics but heavy on a vision of America as the world’s sole superpower.

Countering what he called Obama’s “retrenchment and retreat,” Rubio used the kind of moral language about America’s preeminent role in the world that former president George W. Bush did. He promised to “restore America’s status as a nation that shapes global events rather than one that is shaped by them.”

“America plays a part on the world stage for which there is no understudy,” he continued. “Oppressed peoples still turn their eyes toward our shores, wondering if we hear their cries, wondering if we notice their afflictions. … I believe mankind remains afflicted, and that its destiny largely remains in our hands.”

As president Rubio promised to “advance the rights of the vulnerable—including women and the religious minorities that are so often persecuted—so that the afflicted peoples of the world know the truth: The American people hear their cries, see their suffering, and most of all, desire their freedom.”

He outlined three pillars of the “Rubio doctrine,” one of which was “moral clarity regarding America’s values.”

“[Obama] demonstrated a disregard for our moral purpose that at times flirted with disdain,” Rubio said. “[American ideals] have been replaced by, at best, caution, and at worst, outright willingness to betray those values for the expediency of negotiations with repressive regimes.”

Rubio delivered his speech dispassionately, as though he were speaking at a think tank, which he was. He grew livelier after the speech, during the question-and-answer time with PBS interviewer Charlie Rose. Rubio has a smooth, engaging demeanor in these moments. Rose interrupted Rubio several times as he started to give answers to questions, but Rubio maintained a warm rapport with him.

When Rose asked about Raul Castro possibly mending his relationship with the leadership of the Catholic Church, Rubio quipped, “That would be one long confession.”

Rose asked Rubio if he thought the United States should be “the world’s policeman.” Rubio said no, but that the world “requires a leader to convene a global response.”