Kar se mene tiče, Marco Rubio, nov ameriški zunanji minister, ni oseba, ki bi jo človek povabil domov na večerjo ali šel z njo na pijačo. Vendar je nov ameriški zunanji minister in potrebno je pazljivo prisluhniti njegovim stališčem. Zaradi tega spodaj objavljam nekaj zanimivih pasusov iz njegovega intervjuja v Megyn Kelly Showu (objavljenem tudi na spletnem portalu State Departmenta). Meni so še posebej zanimivi predvsem deli, ki se nanašajo na (1) geopolitični strateški pogled nosilca zunanje politike nove ameriške administracije, (2) pogled na urejanje odnosov s KItajsko in (3) pogled na rešitev vojne v Ukrajini. Vendar priporočam branje celotnega intervjuja, ker je za razliko od podobnih zelo zanimiv.

Prvič, Marco Rubio v svojih pogledih zelo eksplicitno odstopa od dosedanjega 35 let dolgega obdobja enopolarnega sistema liberalne demokracije, ki so ga forsirale ameriške administracije po koncu hladne vojne. Namesto tega odkrito govori, da je zanj svet multipolaren in ki temelji na  ravnotežju moči med velesilami. Vsekakor osvežitev glede na zadnjih 35 let in je – v skladu s teorijo zunanjepolitičnega realizma, ki jo zastopa John Mearsheimer – temelj za večjo globalno stabilnost, kjer ZDA več ne igrajo globalnega policaja, pač pa vsaka država zasleduje lastne interese in jih, kjer se razlikujejo od interesov drugih držav, poskuša uveljaviti prek diplomatskih sredstev.

QUESTION:  America first. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, and that’s the way the world has always worked.  The way the world has always worked is that the Chinese will do what’s in the best interests of China, the Russians will do what’s in the best interest of Russia, the Chileans are going to do what’s in the best interest of Chile, and the United States needs to do what’s in the best interest of the United States.  Where our interests align, that’s where you have partnerships and alliances; where our differences are not aligned, that is where the job of diplomacy is to prevent conflict while still furthering our national interests and understanding they’re going to further theirs.  And that’s been lost. 

And I think that was lost at the end of the Cold War, because we were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem.  And there are terrible things happening in the world.  There are.  And then there are things that are terrible that impact our national interest directly, and we need to prioritize those again.  So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power.  That was not – that was an anomaly.  It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet.  We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.   

So now more than ever we need to remember that foreign policy should always be about furthering the national interest of the United States and doing so, to the extent possible, avoiding war and armed conflict, which we have seen two times in the last century be very costly.  They’re celebrating the 80th anniversary this year of the end of the Second World War.  That – I think if you look at the scale and scope of destruction and loss of life that occurred, it would be far worse if we had a global conflict now.  It may end life on the planet.  And it sounds like hyperbole, but that’s – you have multiple countries now who have the capability to end life on Earth.  And so we need to really work hard to avoid armed conflict as much as possible, but never at the expense of our national interest.  So that’s the tricky balance. 

So I think returning us to that, now you can have a framework by which you analyze not just diplomacy but foreign aid and who we would line up with and the return of pragmatism.  And that’s not an abandonment of our principles.  I’m not a fan or a giddy supporter of some horrifying human rights violator somewhere in the world.  By the same token, diplomacy has always required us and foreign policy has always required us to work in the national interest, sometimes in cooperation with people who we wouldn’t invite over for dinner or people who we wouldn’t necessarily ever want to be led by.  And so that’s a balance, but it’s the sort of pragmatic and mature balance we have to have in foreign policy. 

QUESTION:  The New York Times said okay, you guys got away with this with Colombia, but you’re not going to be able to pull that trick with Russia, with China, with Iran.  If you try to sort of bully these stronger nations in this way, it’s not going to go very well.  Is that a fair point?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, we’re not interested in bullying anybody and we don’t feel like we bullied Colombia.  We feel like we had a deal.  Colombia signed a deal.  They signed a piece of paper that said yes, send us these airplanes, and then halfway into the flight they broke it.  And so our answer was, well, now we flew these planes, we had to bring them back to the United States, so now you’re going to come pick them up.  Why are we going to pay for those flights because you canceled them?  It’s not bullying.  It’s they broke a contract that we had made with them. 

Obviously, look, China has nuclear weapons.  They’re tough people.  There’s no doubt about it.  They’re a tough people, they have nuclear weapons, they’re a great power with a large economy – they’re going to be a global power.  But it can’t come at our expense.  And so ultimately when you’re dealing with great powers like China, it’s going to be at the highest levels of their president and ours or their premier and ours – and our president, and that interaction will happen.  In the case of Russia, the same.  Obviously, there’s going to be – whatever happens with Russia will be a Putin-Trump dynamic.   

Glede osnosov s Kitajsko Rubio zastopa podoben power-play način kot njegov šef Trump. Pač Kitajska  se je razvila do te stopnje tudi zaradi statusa države v razvoju, ki ji je bil podeljen tudi v upanju, da bo, ko se bo razvila, postala podobna drugim državam. Vendar ni, Kitajska ima interes postati največja velesila sveta, ima preveč kontrole nad kritičnimi materiali in tehnologijami, posredno tudi nad Panamskim prekopom itd. Rubijevo stališče je, da Kitajska ravna v svojem lastme interesu, kot bi vsaka druga velika država, medtem ko morajo tudi ZDA ravnati v lastnem interesu in izboljšati strateško pozicijo naspram Kitajske.

SECRETARY RUBIO: 

[…]

In the case of China, there’s two things.  I just described one, which is the grave threat that they pose to our national interests; and the other is the mature realization that no matter what happens, China is going to be a rich and powerful country.  We are going to have to deal with them.  In fact – and I said this in my call with their foreign minister, but I said this publicly – the future – the history of the 21st century will largely be about what happened between the U.S. and China.  So for us to pretend that somehow we’re not going to engage with them is absurd. 

Now, we should engage on our national interests.  That doesn’t – engagement and concessions are two different things.  What’s been horrifying is that for 25 or 30 years, we’ve treated China as a developing country, and we allowed them to continue to do things that were unfair.  We said, go ahead, let them cheat on trade, let them steal our technology, because when they get rich they’ll become just like us.  They became rich, they did not become like us, and now they want to continue to have these unfair benefits.  That has to stop. 

QUESTION:  And they built up their military. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Their military, their industrial capacity, but all over the world their control of critical minerals.  Again, I go back to them because people don’t think about it.  

QUESTION:  Buying up land in the United States. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Buying up farming land in the United States in particular as well, because they need to produce food, and they want to be able to control that.  They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.  They are doing, frankly, what I would do – well, maybe not the human rights violations, but they are doing what anyone would do if they were the leader of China.  They are acting in China’s best interests.  What’s been missing is American policies that act in our best interest.  And that needs to return. 

Bitka za Grenlandijo ni zaradi naravnih bogastev Grenlandije, pač pa za kontrolo arktičnih plovnih poti in da Kitajska – denimo s trgovinsko izpostavo na Grenlandiji – posredno prevzela kontrole nad njimi. Kot bi naj naredila v Panamskem kanalu.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, the Arctic, which has gotten very little attention, but the Arctic Circle and the Arctic region is going to become critical for shipping lanes, for how you get some of this energy that’s going to be produced under President Trump – these energies rely on shipping lanes.  The Arctic has some of the most valuable shipping lanes in the world.  As some of the ice is melting, it’s become more and more navigable.  We need to be able to defend that.   

So if you project what the Chinese have done, it is just a matter of time before – because they are not an Arctic power.  They do not have an Arctic presence, so they need to be able to have somewhere that they can stage from.  And it is completely realistic to believe that the Chinese will eventually – maybe even in the short term – try to do in Greenland what they have done at the Panama Canal and in other places, and that is install facilities that give them access to the Arctic with the cover of a Chinese company but that in reality serve a dual purpose: that in a moment of conflict, they could send naval vessels to that facility and operate from there.  And that is completely unacceptable to the national security of the world and to the United – to the security of the world and the national security of the United States.   

So the question becomes:  If the Chinese begin to threaten Greenland, do we really trust that that is not a place where those deals are going to be made?  Do we really trust that that is not a place where they would not intervene, maybe by force? 

QUESTION:  You don’t think Denmark would stop them?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think that’s been the President’s point, and that is that Denmark can’t stop them; they would rely on the United States to do so.  And so his point is that the United States is on the hook to provide – as we are now; we have a defense agreement with them – to protect Greenland if it comes under assault.  If we’re already on the hook for having to do that, then why – we might as well have more control over what happens there.  And so I know it’s a delicate topic for Denmark, but it’s, again, a national interest item for the United States.   

QUESTION:  So there was a conference call between President Trump and the Danish prime minister.  Apparently it didn’t go very well; it reportedly involved some sort of a meltdown on the prime minister’s part.  They don’t want to give it up.  So what does that – what options does that leave us?  Because President Trump did not rule out economic or potentially military use. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I think President Trump’s – what he has said publicly is he wants to buy it.  He wants to pay for it.  And how we work on something like that, how something like that is approached – obviously, it’s probably done better in the appropriate forums, as – a lot of stuff is done publicly and it’s not helpful because it puts the other side in a tough spot domestically.   

So those conversations are going to happen, but this is not a joke.  Like, what he is saying is pretty – I mean, people have been talking about it for years.  We do have – this is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land.  This is in our national interests, and it needs to be solved.  President Trump’s put out there what he intends to do, which is to purchase it.  I wasn’t privy to that phone call, but I imagine the phone call went the way a lot of these phone calls go, and that is he just speaks bluntly and frankly with people.  And ultimately, I think diplomacy in many cases works better when you’re straightforward as opposed to using platitudes and language that translates to nothing.   

QUESTION:  So when President Trump said he might use economic or military coercion, what does that mean?  What is military coercion?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I don’t remember him saying military coercion.   

QUESTION:  He did.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think what he – he was asked what – would you rule out —    

QUESTION:  Would you rule it out?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Right.  I don’t think he’s in the – he – listen, he also brings to this —    

QUESTION:  He said, no, I won’t rule it out.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Because he brings to this – this is a businessman who is involved in politics, not a politician involved in politics.  So he approaches these issues from a transactional business point of view.  So he is not going to begin what he views as a negotiation or a conversation by taking —    

QUESTION:  Anything off the table.  

Glede Ukrajine je pozicija Rubia povsem nasprotna poziciji njegovega predhodnika Blinkna. Rubio jasno prizna, da je bilo nepošteno, da so napeljali ljudi k prepričanju, da bo Ukrajina lahko ne le premagala Rusijo, ampak jo uničila, jo potisnila vse nazaj v svet, kot je izgledal leta 2012 ali 2014. In da so ZDA zadnje leto in pol financirali pat pozicijo, v kateri se je človeško trpljenje nadaljevalo, medtem ko je bila Ukrajina potisnjena razvojno 100 let nazaj.

https://twitter.com/BalazsOrban_HU/status/1885679610085404989

Pozicija Trumpove administracije je, da je treba čimprej priti do pogajanj, v katerih bo vsaka stran morala popustiti, in da bodo seveda ZDA tiste, ki bodo odigrale vlogo mediatorja.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  

QUESTION:  You’ve got a lot – I’m just sticking with the Republicans now, because there’s a whole other debate with the other side of the aisle – but who say no, Putin’s a bad actor; Russia’s a growing threat, and we’re doing the right thing by backing Ukraine.  And I would say the majority of Republicans now are against that viewpoint and think we’ve lost – we’ve spent too much.  It’s anyplace from 105 billion to 187 billion.  And they’ve lost.  We just have to be realistic about the fact that Ukraine has lost; it’s not going to gain back any of this ground.  And we need a negotiated settlement now before we keep throwing good money after bad, and we can’t afford it.  We’ve got Americans who are suffering now.  I think that’s the majority view even on the Republican side now.   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It also happens to be the reality on the ground.  First, let me say this.  We think what Putin did was terrible: invading a country, the atrocities he’s committed.  He did horrible things.  But what – the dishonesty that has existed is that we somehow led people to believe that Ukraine would be able not just to defeat Russia but destroy them, push them all the way back to what the world looked like in 2012 or 2014, before the Russians took Crimea and the like.  And then the result, what they’ve been asking for the last year and a half, is to fund a stalemate, a protracted stalemate, in which human suffering continues.  Meanwhile Ukraine is being set back 100 years; their energy grid is being wiped out.  I mean, someone’s going to have to pay for all this reconstruction after the fact.  And how many Ukrainians have left Ukraine, living in other countries now?  They may never return.  I mean, that’s their future, and it’s in danger in that regard. 

So the President’s point of view is this a protracted conflict and it needs to end.  Now, it needs to end through a negotiation.  In any negotiation, both sides are going to have to give something up.  I’m not going to pre-negotiate that.  I mean, that’s going to be the work of hard diplomacy, which is what we used to do in the world in the past, and we were realistic about it.  But both sides in a negotiation have to give something.  And that’s going to take time, but at least we have a President that recognizes that our objective is this conflict needs to end, and it needs to end in a way that’s enduring, because it’s an unsustainable – on all sides, it’s ultimately unsustainable.  Russia’s paying a big price for this in their own economy, their inflation rate and the like.   

But at the end, that’s the President’s position, and it’s the truth.  And I think even a growing number of Democrats would now acknowledge that what we have been funding is a stalemate, a protracted conflict, and maybe even worse than a stalemate, one in which incrementally Ukraine is being destroyed and losing more and more territory.  So this conflict needs to end and both sides —  

QUESTION:  Who’s the bigger – who’s the bigger problem in reaching a final negotiated settlement there, right?  Is it Putin or is it Zelenskyy?  There’s a report out that the Ukrainians are just banking on Putin digging his heels in and becoming annoying to President Trump on this, because he won’t give an inch.  And they’re hoping that President Trump will come back over, closer to their worldview about Putin, about Russia, about this conflict.  So who do you see as the bigger obstacle in getting a negotiated peace there?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I think there’s the public and then there’s the private, right?  So in what you see portrayed publicly in conversations and what leaders say, a lot of it is speaking – they have domestic politics and political considerations.  Even Vladimir Putin, who controls media, still has to care about what public opinion is in Russia and his image and what – how his entire personality is built around that. 

QUESTION:  Why do you think he does the shirtless pictures?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  He doesn’t do those anymore.  I think it’s been a while.  (Laughter.)  

QUESTION:  I asked him.  I asked him, “Why do you do it?” when I interviewed him.  And he said, “I give the people what they want.” 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No.  (Laughter.)  Well, the point is that he has got his own domestic considerations.  And so does Zelenskyy, right?  I mean, at the end of the day he’s got – if you image if you’re a Ukrainian, the Russians have made you suffer so much, and now you’re going to let them keep land?  I mean, the people would be upset about that in Ukraine, and you would understand it.  And then there’s the mature realities of life on this planet, and that’s where this work is going to have to be defined. 

Vir: U.S. State Department