Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) delivered the weekly Republican address Friday on the growing crisis in Ukraine and President Obama's reactive foreign policy.
Today, Rubio said, foreign policy is a significant part of U.S. domestic policy and the country's economic well-being is tied to its national security.
"The problem is that President Obama doesn't seem to understand this," he said. "Instead of shaping world events, he has often simply reacted to them. Instead of a foreign policy based on strategy, his foreign policy is based on politics."
U.S. foreign policy should be based on three principles, Rubio said: Peace through strength, using strength to confront those attempting to endanger the freedom of the seas, airspace and the Internet, and never allowing nations or terrorist groups to hold any region of the world "hostage to their demands."
Russian president Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a challenge to those principles, Rubio argued, and the U.S. cannot allow a precedent of smaller countries needing permission to engage with the West in trade and commerce from their more powerful neighbors.
To that end, Rubio and other Senate Republicans introduced legislation this week that would enact harsher sanctions against Russia and give greater support to non-NATO allies Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
Other countries who rely on freedom for prosperity must also stay engaged, Rubio said, but the U.S. must lead the effort.
"After a decade of conflict abroad, we are anxious to focus on problems here at home," Rubio said. "But the truth is that now more than ever before, a crisis halfway around the world can have a bigger impact on our pocketbooks than some crisis halfway across town."