What Marco Rubio revealed about his foreign policy ideas in his 2012 Brookings speech

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) announced today that he is entering the 2016 presidential election. In a speech at Brookings in 2012, Senator Rubio delivered remarks outlining his views on a variety of foreign policy topics, from Iran’s nuclear program, to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, to Russia and Europe, and to America’s role in the world. Visit the event’s web page for a full video and transcript of the speech. Some highlights are below.

Military solution may be required on Iran’s nuclear ambitions

Three years prior to the current status of Iran nuclear negotiations, Sen. Rubio said that “if all else fails, preventing a nuclear Iran may tragically require a military solution.”

An autocratic Russia hard to integrated into global community

Sen. Rubio said that “An autocratic Russia tends to be more anti-Western and to act in ways that make it harder to integrate Russia into the global community and the free international order.”

U.S. only nation capable of leading

Sen. Rubio said that “In confronting the challenges of our time, there are more nations than ever capable of contributing, but there is still only one nation capable of leading.”

Referring to Brookings Senior Fellow Bob Kagan’s book “The World America Made,” Sen. Rubio reviewed the global order following World War II, noting the open international system, the flourishing of democracy and free market capitalism, and other outcomes that:

were achieved because the United States had a vision, the will and means to do the hard work of bringing it into existence, and then of maintaining it. We had the will and the means to defend its norms and institutions and the security of our partners, face down its challengers, assist other people in attaining their liberty, keep trade routes open, and support the expansion of free-market capitalism that accelerated the growth of the global economy. And we did it without coveting other countries’ territories or seizing their assets or robbing them of their opportunities.

The purpose of the institutions we established, from the United Nations to the World Bank and the IMF, was to spread peace and prosperity, not to certain narrow American interests. Other nations consented to our leadership because they saw what the economic and political values of the American worldview had achieved for us and they wanted the same for themselves. They followed us because they believed that our way, the American way, the principals of free people and free markets, was the best way to advance their societies.

Visit the event’s page for more.

See also then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks at Brookings in 2012. Ms. Clinton announced her candidacy for the White House this weekend.