The United States, in its foreign policy, needs to move at "the speed of relevance." That's what our new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told employees of the State Department at a ceremonial gathering held during Rubio's first day in his new job.
Rubio is pictured above. I am referencing an article in the January 23, 2025, edition of The New York Times. If you are a subscriber, you can read the whole article by clicking right here. If you are not a subscriber, I give no guarantees.
In trying to communicate what he means by "the speed of relevance," Rubio told his audience this:
We have to have a view that some say is called ‘look around the corner,’ but we really need to be thinking about where are we going to be in five, seven, 10 or 15 years.
Rubio is acknowledging that we (and by "we" I mean both our nation and the world) are actually in motion, and not just standing still. The current "moment" is a moment that can be properly understood only by realizing that we are "underway," that word actually reflecting a maritime terminology ("under weigh") which I, as a former merchant seaman, have explained before, in one of my very earliest blog postings.
To "look around the corner," or to be thinking about where we are going to be in the future, "in five, seven, 10 or 15 years," we need to take account of our current speed and direction. If we are heading for destruction, we need to change course, and if we are moving at top speed, then we need to start turning the steering wheel right now.
"Turning the steering wheel" is a metaphor, of course, for what is really needed; namely, doing something new, something never even thought of before." In terms of the State Department, which needs to start moving with "the speed of relevance," what would be most helpful would be some new ideas of what we might be doing, different from what we're doing now.
So, how about that idea of a State Department-sponsored and State Departent-funded program to establish pen pal relationships, and to build a massive student exchange program? Would that help bring the world together?
Or, what about a "Global Warming Response Corps"? What if the United States started establishing small groups, and trained them how to help individual homeowners and families, small businesses, and local communities, all over the world, take action to reduce their power consumption, and to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases? Could that make a difference?
And what about other such ideas?
If we "look around the corner," and see "five, seven, 10 or 15 years" out, what we see will depend on where we are headed now, and how fast we are moving. Where are we headed now? Here's an old-fashioned way of putting it, "to hell in a handbasket."
Time to try something new, Marco, and we need to be moving at the speed of relevance!
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