Follow us on social

Marco Rubio

What Rubio said about multipolarity should get more attention

The newly minted secretary of state undermined the basis of primacy

Analysis | QiOSK

I almost fell off my chair listening to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly where he declared unipolarity an anomaly and treated a return to multipolarity essentially as a correction by the gravitational forces of geopolitics.

This is what he said:

“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.”

Rubio’s comments should be getting more attention.

Setting aside whether he truly believes this or is simply adjusting to President Trump's worldview, it is still very significant for the secretary of state to not only declare unipolarity over (Hillary Clinton said the world was multipolar already in 2010, but saying it and meaning it are two different things), but to also treat the return to multipolarity as a return to normalcy.

It’s not clear how far Rubio has thought this through, and he makes no mention of ending primacy as a grand strategy. However, he speaks of centering U.S. interests in U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. cannot be responsible for resolving every problem in the world.

But if one sees unipolarity as a historical accident and an anomaly, then it would be difficult to justify a grand strategy of primacy or liberal hegemony that, at its essence, seeks to either restore or prolong that anomaly.

Of course, the gap between what is thought, what is said, and what is done by the Trump administration may be quite sizable.

Either way, Rubio's interview here deserves more attention. Not only because it is refreshing but also because a serious grandstrategic conversation — free from dishonest accusations of isolationism or China-hugging — is long overdue.


Top image credit: Secretary Marco Rubio participates in a podcast with Megyn Kelly at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., January 30, 2025. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)
Analysis | QiOSK
Trump Milei
Top image credit: U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Argentina's President Javier Milei at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 14, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Trump bet $40B on Milei, but what do Americans get out of it?

Latin America

It has been a busy week for U.S. policy towards Argentina.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday that the U.S. would be doubling the assistance it is marshaling for Argentina from $20 billion to $40 billion. The increase comes ahead of legislative elections on October 26 that will elect half the lower house and one-third of the upper house, and represents an increasingly strenuous effort in Washington to bolster Argentine President Javier Milei financially and politically.

keep readingShow less
Von Der Leyen Zelensky
Top image credit: paparazzza / Shutterstock.com

Blame game erupts in Europe as Ukraine strategy falters

Europe

Angela Merkel, the eternal pragmatist, has chosen her moment. In a recent interview to Hungarian media, the former German chancellor pointed a finger at Baltic and Polish leaders for their alleged role in “undermining” a potential EU-Russia dialogue before the war.

Whatever one thinks of her legacy, Merkel has an unmatched sense of political timing. Her statement is not a historical aside; it is the opening salvo in Europe’s looming blame game for the impending defeat in Ukraine.

Her comments land at the precise moment the foundational assumptions of Europe’s Ukraine policy are collapsing. On the battlefield, Russian forces are now grinding out slow, but steady gains. In the United States, Donald Trump keeps insisting that this is “Biden’s war,” not his, and that it should end.

keep readingShow less
Congo DRC M23
Top photo credit: Demonstration raising awareness of the conflict and humanitarian crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in Brussels in the Brussels Capital province of Belgium on October 8, 2025. (Hans Lucas/Reuters)

No, Trump did not 'end' the war in the Congo. It's as bloody as ever.

Africa

Earlier this week, Donald Trump made the bold claim that he’s responsible for ending eight wars since taking office this past January — in other words, nearly one war each month of his presidency.

Among the wars on his list is the decades-long conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, which has mired central Africa since the days of the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s in a quagmire conflict involving over one hundred armed groups.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.