'Fox News Sunday' on July 9, 2023
Interview
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Great to be with you, Shannon. Thanks.
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Well, Shannon, you know, I'm not sure we're getting a lot, but you have to communicate. The two most powerful nations in the world have to communicate to avoid unnecessary escalation and risk. Nobody in the United States wants to see an unnecessary military skirmish with China, and that's why communication is so important.
Communication doesn't guarantee a positive outcome, but the absence of communication does.
But here's what we're doing, even if China isn't giving -- we're building a stronger Taiwan, helping it defend itself to unprecedented levels. We are forging a partnership with Australia and the U.K. in the Indo-Pacific region to provide more democracy -- support for democracies in the region.
I'm going to be in Norfolk at the Naval base this week with officials from those nations to talk about what we can do to strengthen our combined defense in the region.
And what we've shown with NATO is that our alliance is second to none. We are strengthening alliances and that's very obvious to the Chinese that are very worried about it, and we're strengthening Taiwan. And that's what we need to do.
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Yeah.
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Well, we need to do this and, Shannon, remember Secretary Esper, President Trump's final secretary of defense, in a book said that President Trump's plan was to pull out of NATO if he got a second term and he's running for president, and that would still be a live threat.
But look what's happened with NATO since the war in Ukraine began. It has strengthened. It has shown that it can work together and has surprised Vladimir Putin. It's grown. Finland is in NATO, and President Biden will be there to celebrate their accession.
I believe Sweden is going to be in very soon. The, you know, the -- it's -- it's hard to predict Erdogan's behavior. I viewed some of his opposition to Sweden as pre presidential election, campaign style opposition. But I'm really glad that President Biden will have the chance to go directly to him at this NATO Summit, and to encourage quick access to Sweden. And Turkey has taken some positive steps recently. They've returned some prisoners to Ukraine that made the Kremlin very, very mad. They've shown that they want to help in this situation in Ukraine. And I think you're going to see a positive decision on Sweden soon.
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Well, I kind of agree with my colleagues, Senator Barrasso on this. The focus right now should be helping Ukraine win this war, that should be the focus. And we needn't complicated with other matters. You know, Russia's narrative is the West hates us. That's what they're trying to tell their citizens to lie and cover up the fact that they've engaged in this illegal invasion of a -- of a sovereign nation. And Ukraine coming into NATO right now with sort of further the false Russian narrative. This is a war to protect Ukrainian sovereignty against an illegal invasion, committed by a dictator who's committing one human rights abuse after the next. Let's focus on helping Ukraine win this war. And then we can talk about matters like NATO accession and other important matters about Ukrainian alliances with Western democracies.
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Yeah, and Shannon, look, I share -- I share this concern. There is an international convention against use of these cluster munitions that dates back to 2008. And the reason the prohibition was put in place, as you have described is that these are kinds of munitions, that can lead to some downstream risks to civilians.
Now, let's -- let's acknowledge we wouldn't even be here, if it weren't for the fact that Russia is indiscriminately using cluster munitions to target Ukrainian civilians. That's obviously not what Ukraine is going to do. They're not going to use these munitions against Russians -- Russian civilians. And rather than maximizing harm to Ukrainian civilians, they've given us a variety of assurances that they're going to do this in a way that will focus on Russian military, but minimize risk to their own people.
I would still say, though, I have some real qualms about it, when there's an international prohibition, and the U.S. says, but here's a good reason to do something different. It could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well. So it causes me some concern. But I do appreciate that the Biden administration has really grappled with the risks and reached agreements with Ukrainian military about using these munitions in a way to dislodge Russian military while minimizing risks of Ukrainian civilians.
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Glad to be with you, Shannon.
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