(They sound like a right-wing rock band. Ted Nugent could play with them)
As far as I can tell, there are actually two branches in the neocon family. The first group, which predominated during the Iraq War era, believes that American interests (and, indeed, the interests of all people) ultimately require that American economic and political values be transplanted throughout the world, sometimes by force. The second group adheres to what could be described as a “community policing” model on a world-wide scale; its adherents maintain that American military power is necessary to address issues regardless of whether they impact American core interests because, due to the increased mobility of people and ideas, someone else’s small problem can quickly become our big problem.
Rubio has aligned himself with the neocons, but it isn’t completely clear which of the two branches he favors. There is no doubt that he wants to make human rights issues a bigger part of our dealings with China and Cuba, which suggests that he wants to impose American exceptionalism on the world, but I haven’t heard him say anything about spreading democracy in the Middle East, possibly because the situation there is so far gone that even bringing back stability may take a magic trick.
The first group has been discredited to the point that its views do not require a rebuttal. The second group, on the other hand, is alive and well; I will be addressing their ideas in a later post. For present purposes, suffice it to say that the activism of a Rubio Administration would result in more American involvement in conflicts around the globe.