In an effort to fortify his foreign policy chops, Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio delivered a major national security speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday, outlining “The Rubio Doctrine.” Rubio offered three key pillars of his foreign policy doctrine: 1) American strength, 2) the protection of the American economy in a globalized world, and 3) moral clarity regarding America’s core values.
His second pillar — “the protection of the American economy in a globalized world” — is an old but valuable issue worth championing as a key interest of American foreign policy in 2016 and beyond, and one that President Obama has made a centerpiece of his foreign policy since nearly his first day in office.
In his speech, Rubio defined this pillar as “opposing any violations of international waters, airspace, cyberspace, or outerspace” with a focus on “attempts to block global commerce” and “disruptions in chokepoints such as the South China Sea or the Strait of Hormuz.”
This goal of maintaining unrestricted commercial access and use of sea lanes, airspace, and the internet is more frequently referred to as the defense of the “global commons” or “freedom of navigation” and has been a core mission of the U.S. military since the Carter administration in 1980. President Obama’s 2015 National Security Strategy places a major emphasis on the goal of “Assur[ing] Access to Shared Spaces,” stating that the United States will “ensure the free flow of commerce, respond quickly to those in need, and deter those who might contemplate aggression.”
The international right of freedom of navigation was even codified under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Ironically, Sen. Rubio has been one of the most ardent opponents of U.S. ratification of the treaty, thus hindering “the protection of the American economy in a globalized world” by preventing the United States from locking in U.S.-designed rules on freedom of navigation in disputed waters such as the South China Sea.
But Rubio’s larger point that the United States should forcefully respond to any attempts by countries like China and Iran to block global commerce is a valid one. In Rubio’s words, “Businesses must have the freedom to operate around the world with confidence.” And with that in mind, it’s worth revisiting how the Obama administration has time and time again defended the principle of freedom of navigation, countering both pirates and countries that would seek to restrict this freedom.
In the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz — a critical chokepoint for international trade and oil — the U.S. has consistently stood up to Iranian threats to close the shipping lanes or harass commercial ships. The U.S. Navy began accompanying cargo ships in response to Iran impounding a Marshall Islands-flagged ship earlier this month. The U.S. Navy regularly engages Iranian ships in international waters, standing up to Iranian shows of force and pushing back on their efforts to harass commercial ships traversing the area’s sealanes. When Iran threatened to close off the strait in 2012, the U.S. led a 30-nation demining exercise and deployed a carrier group with Britain in France in a show of force, which caused Iran to back off its dangerous rhetoric.
In the East and South China Seas, the U.S. has similarly responded to aggressive Chinese maritime claims that could impede international commercial trade in the region. In response to Chinese construction of man-made islands in disputed waters in the South China Sea, the Department of Defense prepared a range of military show of force options this week, including flying surveillance aircraft directly over the islands and putting ships within 12 nautical miles of the islands to challenge Chinese claims on the islands and surrounding waters. In November 2013, the U.S. flew two B-52’s over islands claimed by China in disputed territory in the East China Sea, publically rejecting China’s self-declared air defense identification zone.
And in response to the growth of piracy off the coast of Somalia, the United States launched a multinational counterpiracy mission designed to deter and defend against pirate attacks on commercial ships in the region. As a result, the number of attempted attacks off the eastern coast of Africa and the Red Sea declined from 221 in 2010 to just 11 in 2014.
These examples of President Obama “protecting the American economy in a globalized world” — as well as the fact that the Department of Defense challenged excessive maritime claims from 19 countries last year — unfortunately didn’t make it into Rubio’s speech at CFR. Though Rubio forgot to mention these facts, it’s a welcome change of pace to see a Republican presidential candidate offer such full-throated support for the Obama administration’s defense of the freedom of navigation, even if it was unintentional.