Rubio at a Senate Intel Hearing: America is seen as in decline on the global stage

thank you Mr chairman thank you all for coming here today and I also extend my thanks to the men and women who work underneath you that do the important work of of keeping our country safe at um what I think you could describe as one of those pivot moments in history where what life will be like for a generation is being determined by what's happening now and in the near future while events are changing perhaps faster than any other time in human history I think it's hard I think we have to remind ourselves if we're going to talk about the specific threats to whats the why the the bigger outline picture of why things are happening the way they are happening because I do think that they are all interrelated so from the end of the Cold War I don't know when the end date is but let's say the late 2000s um we lived in a unipolar world the United States was basically the only country in the world that could project power everywhere at every time and we were called upon to do many things uh in regards to that um but other nation states progress during that stage and I still think America by far by every measure you can imagine economically culturally militarily Remains the world's strongest nation and should remain that way for the foreseeable future if we make the right choices that order that we've just that I just described is being challenged it's being challenged by nation states that frankly don't like the way the world looks now at least they think it benefits America and it hurts them and they want to remake A New World perhaps even replace the world that they think is beneficial to America and our Democratic allies uh with an alternative if if not at least a uh a replacement uh this new order that they seek the Chinese they believe were an inevitable Decline and that their rise is inevitable as well um like I said they don't like the rules of the world as they believe were written by America and our allies and so they increasingly are taking it upon themselves at every opportunity to challenge them they at every domain they steal our ideas on Innovation and so forth so that their companies can do the things that we do but of course do it cheaper and flood Market Market with those products I don't need to tell this panel or the members of this committee and the general public that they're expanding their military capabilities in an extraordinary way uh to include not simply projecting power in the Indo Pacific but around the world they uh by the way they manipulate loopholes in our laws and in our systems in this country two buy up land buy up companies uh gain strategic advantage and industries and undermine our Industries in return they are a major part of flooding this country with deadly drugs that are destroying communities and ravaging entire families and uh they've also gotten very good at hiring lobbyists and even deputizing the corporate industry Corporate America to come up here and Lobby us for things that are beneficial to the Chinese goals at the expense of this country long term and I think it's important to mention here today they also happen to control anybody says they don't doesn't know what they're talking about because every company in China is controlled by the Chinese Communist party they happen to control a company that owns the world's uh one of the world's best artificial intelligence um artificial intelligence uh uh algorithms it's the one that's used in this country by Tik Tok and it uses the data of Americans to basically read your mind and predict what videos you want to see the reason why Tik Tok is so successful the reason why it's so attractive is because it knows you better than you know yourself and the more you use it the more it learns the problem is not Tik Tok or the videos the problem is the algorithm that powers it is controlled by a company in China that must do whatever the Chinese Communist Party tells them to do and the only way that that algorithm works is if that company in China under the control of the Chinese government is given access to the data that Tik Tock collects Tik Tok does not work without that algorithm and that algorithm is controlled by a company that's controlled by the Chinese Communist Party under the law of China in the case of uh Putin he also he actually sees America as decadent and in Decline and he views China Russia as resilient they view themselves as a great power and he believes that great Powers have a right to buffer states he believes that great Powers have a right not just to have their own borders but to control the countries around their borders as buffer States I think they already have that in Belarus in his mind and it is one of the reasons why he invades Ukraine in the case of Iran they want to export their Shia Islamic revolution to the entire Middle East and the problem with this is two things standing in their way the state of Israel and the United States of America and so that is why they have proxy groups in places like Syria in Iraq in Lebanon in Yemen in Gaza who they use for their purposes one of their purposes is to use these groups now to attack Americans so that we will say it's not worth the trouble we need to get out of there and once we leave then they'll move on Jordan and on Bahrain then they'll make Israel in unlivable place and ultimately their Ambitions are the entire region and most of the gulf kingdoms that's why I think it's a mistake to view the horrific events of October 7th as simply the latest iteration of a long-standing Israeli Palestinian problem it is deeply tied to the head of this snake and the head of the snake is in Iran and in Tyran add to all of these three countries North Korea we haven't heard a lot about it yet they have become increasingly aggressive in fact I would argue that we perhaps are closer to some armed hostilities than we've been in a decade or longer um why why have become so aggressive they feel empowered they feel empowered because Putin is buying things from them and helping them to break their International isolation and also because I don't know what percentage of their economy is powered by uh ransomware attacks and cyber hacking but it's substantial they generate a lot of money from that and then add to all these parades of horribles the fact that terror is still a threat Iran as has been publicly reported is still trying to kill former government officials that live in the United States of America there are former government officials in this country no longer in office who require 24 hours a day security because Iran is trying to kill them inside the United States Hezbollah an agent of Iran is also looking for ways to conduct terrorist attacks against American interests and Israeli and Jewish interests all over the world and here in the Homeland as well by the way Isis and al-a are not out of business they are still involved add al-shabab to that they also want to kill Americans they could do it in the Homeland they would love that and all of that happening at a time in which perhaps the single largest most eventful migration Corridor in history is operating right off of our border so I think it's a mistake sometimes to divide all of these problems geographically because in some ways they're all interrelated in key ways yes these individual states all have different Ambitions but they share common goal and the common goal is a world friendlier and better for them and their interests and a world in which America is weakened and less able to act and all of these crisis begin to Interlock in a way that helped them for example the Chinese and the Russians are probably see great benefit no not probably they do see great benefit what's happening in the Middle East because they figure every dollar and every second of our attention that's paid there is we're not paying to what's happening with Ukraine and we're not paying to the Indo Pacific um the Chinese see great benefit in Ukraine as well because they view it as the more time and money we spend there the less time and money and focus we have on them in fact one of the things I know the Chinese hope for is one of two things a we deplete ourselves in Ukraine Andor the Middle East particularly Ukraine or B we cut and run and then they can go around the world see I told you America's weak I told you America is unreliable they have a plan for either outcome which makes it challenging for us as we decide what to do here here um so these things all come together and I think that's really the overarching threats that we face is an understanding that none of these should be viewed in isolation the goals that Russia has the goal that Iran has the goal that North Korea has the role of the Chinese have maybe different goals but one of the real developments that threaten the security of our country is that they are increasingly partnering with one another not a NATO alliance not the sort of formal alliance that's written out but they are increasingly partnering with each other on selected topics and selected opportunities because they all share one goal and that is they want to weaken America weaken our alliances weaken our standing and our capability and our will because it helps them to achieve the world as they Envision it the world that they want but it comes at our expense and at the expense of all that's been built over the last 20 or 30 years so um I think that one of the greatest dangers we face is the inability to see how all these things are interconnected Ed and I think one of the greatest challenges we face is to deal with them as if they are interconnected I I think that what life will be like on this planet for the next generation will be determined very much by what we do or fail to do here over the next two to three years and certainly with the issues that are before us today