World Review: Rubio in Asia, Who’s in Charge on Ukraine, and Netanyahu Puts Politics First

A weekly look at news from around the world.

While my weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder” is on hiatus this summer, I will take a look at three issues that caught my attention each week. Going forward, I’ll aim to send these out each Friday.

Rubio in Asia

For an administration that has touted Asia as the most important region in the world, it’s surprising that it took the Secretary of State almost 6 months to make his first trip to the region. Others in the position during the past quarter century, traveled there much sooner—and two (Hillary Clinton and Antony Blinken) made Asia their first destination.

Last week, Marco Rubio finally made it to Asia. But a three-day trip that was supposed to include stops in Japan and South Korea was cut short to just 36 hours, with a single visit to Kuala Lumpur to attend the annual ASEAN meeting. Rubio had brief one-on-ones with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (announcing a Trump-Xi meeting was still very much in the offing) and with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (promising to report back on some interesting new ideas he had heard about ending the war in Ukraine). But he had just 50 minutes for a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

Of course, you can’t really blame Rubio for leaving Asia as quickly as he could. After all, his arrival in the region coincided with the publication of dozens of letters by Trump setting forth new tariff rates of as high as 40 percent, including letters to 8 of 10 ASEAN members, Japan, and South Korea. This, despite the fact that negotiations in all cases were still ongoing. When asked about the tariffs, Rubio ducked the issue, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Rubio, who emphasized in meetings that he isn’t in charge of U.S. trade negotiations, sought to play down Trump’s threats as broader negotiations and insisted they weren’t meant to alienate allies.

“I would say that when all is said and done, many of the countries in Southeast Asia are going to have tariff rates that are actually better than countries in other parts of the world,” Rubio said.

Not sure that is reassuring.

In any case, the reason for cutting the trip short, however, wasn’t trade policy but Rubio’s multiple roles in the administration. In the days leading up to the planned visit, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington to meet with Trump to advance a ceasefire in Gaza and discuss the future of Iran. While Secretary of State of State Rubio should have been in Asia, visiting Japan and South Korea and perhaps other key allies, National Security Adviser Rubio needed to be with the president when he was meeting with a key foreign leader. Unfortunately, though Rubio wears both hats, he can’t be in two places at once.

This is hardly the only example of chaos and confusion produced by staffing issues. As Washington Post columnist Max Boot observes, Rubio’s dual-role coincides with the weakening of the NSC as an institution, with dire consequences for policy.

The NSC was created in 1947 not only to support the president in foreign policy decision-making but also to coordinate all of the various national security agencies — state, defense, treasury, justice, the CIA, etc. — and to ensure that they are all marching in lockstep in executing administration policy. In our system of government, an effective NSC is necessary for effective policy formulation and execution. Having such a diminished NSC is a recipe for chaos and dysfunction — and all the more so when many senior administration policymakers are inexperienced.

Boot concludes that Trump needs a strong and effective national security adviser and get rid of all the envoys who are creating confusion for foreign interlocutors and diminishing the power of cabinet officials. He’s right, of course. But as I’ve argued, Trump is quite happy with the way things are going and he’s unlikely to make any changes until his view changes.

Who’s in Charge on Ukraine?

On Tuesday, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked Trump during a Cabinet meeting who had ordered the shutdown of weapon shipments to Ukraine the previous week. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” The person who did know, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was sitting right next to Trump. But he didn’t say a word.

When the Pentagon first announced that shipments of artillery shells, long-range rockets, and most importantly Patriot interceptors to Ukraine had been halted because the weapons were needed by US forces. The White House issued a statement concurring with the decision.

“This decision was made to put America’s interests first following a DOD review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe. The strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned — just ask Iran."

But here was the president, a week later, claiming he didn’t know who had made the decision. In fact, after talking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the previous Friday, Trump had decided to resume at least some of the shipments, notably of Patriot interceptors. And later in the week, Trump told NBC News that he was willing to send additional weapons, but with a catch. “We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100%,” Trump said late Thursday. “So what we’re doing is, the weapons that are going out are going to NATO, and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons (to Ukraine), and NATO is paying for those weapons.”

So, what happened? Did Trump know and sign off on the pause in weapons shipments? And did he then change his mind after he talked to Zelensky and had a bad call with Putin? Or didn’t he know about the decision and was caught off guard when it happened? CNN had an interesting story suggesting the latter—that the decision was made by Hegseth without consultation with Rubio or others, and issued without informing State or the White House.

It’s hard to know if CNN was right—though White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to CNN that

The Pentagon conducted a review “to ensure all support going to all foreign nations aligns with America’s interests,” and added that Trump “has made the decision to continue providing defensive weapons to Ukraine to help stop the killing in this brutal war, which the Pentagon has said they are actively working on.” She added that “the President has full confidence in the Secretary of Defense.”

We may never know who knew and decided what and when, but as Max Boot argued in the piece cited above, this is another clear indication of a chaotic and confused policymaking process that serves no one.

Netanyahu Puts Politics First

It’s hardly news that Netanyahu has long put his own political survival first—even when it comes to conducting war. But a blockbuster report in the New York Times by Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman, Natan Odenheimer, based on 110 interviews and a review of thousands of documents and recordings, tells the story of how Netanyahu consistently put politics first. “Our reporting,” they write,

has led us to three unavoidable conclusions. In the years preceding the war, Netanyahu’s approach to Hamas helped to strengthen the group, giving it space to secretly prepare for war. In the months before that war, Netanyahu’s push to undermine Israel’s judiciary widened already-deep rifts within Israeli society and weakened its military, making Israel appear vulnerable and encouraging Hamas to ready its attack. And once the war began, Netanyahu’s decisions were at times colored predominantly by political and personal need instead of only military or national necessity.

The lengthy, detailed Times report is full of surprises and interesting revelations. It notes that Netanyahu was repeatedly warned by senior intelligence officials in 2023 that the political divisions and unrest caused by his government attempts to overhaul the judiciary were seen by Israel’s enemies as weakening the country and providing an opportunity for launching an attack. For example, Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Betz, who Netanyahu tried to fire earlier this year, warned the prime minister in mid-2023:

the country was at a “point of crisis” and faced imminent peril. The details were not clear, Bar said, but the danger was real. “I am giving you a strategic alert for war,” he said. “I don’t know when, and I don’t know where, but I’m giving you a strategic warning for war.”

Netanyahu dismissed this and all other warnings, according to the Times.

The report also details how Netanyahu was on the verge of proposing a ceasefire in Gaza in April 2024 that could have ended the war, only to pull back once one of his right-wing coalition partners threatened to torpedo the government. That July another ceasefire was again within reach, but Netanyahu raised the stakes once again to end the prospect for an agreement. And when a ceasefire was finally agreed in early 2025, Netanyahu resumed the bombing campaign in March because his government would otherwise have fallen over the failure to agree on a budget.

The Times report is a strong indictment of the Israeli Prime Minister. On Saturday Netanyahu’s office dismissed the report, which it argued “defames Israel.” But, as the Times later noted, the Israeli statement “does not refute the facts.”