WASHINGTON ― Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is known for personal crusades against big tech companies like Google and Facebook, and also what he’s called "a martial, expansionist” China. A former Missouri attorney general, Hawley unseated Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill last year to become, at 39, the Senate’s youngest member.

Now a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hawley wrote to Defense Secretary Mark Esper last month to warn that U.S. troops in the Indo-Pacific region are over-concentrated and outgunned by China. In a foreign policy speech Tuesday, he called China’s drive for regional dominance a “clear and present danger” to the United States, arguing America must empower its military to deter China from attempting the subordination of Taiwan.

His broad foreign policy vision echoes President Donald Trump by stressing American interests, but Hawley’s been described as “the polished, welcome face of the new right.” Arguing for a foreign policy reset, he faulted both Republicans’ and Democrats’ overconfidence in the idea that false progressive values and institutions would spread in the “new world order.”

“It is time for a new departure, based on America’s needs in this new century,” Hawley said. “Because the point of American foreign policy should not be to remake the world, but to keep Americans safe and prosperous. And those aims are themselves in service to a higher one: to preserve, protect and defend our unique way of democracy.”

The senator spoke to Defense News on Nov. 13 in his office at the Capitol.

What prompted you to deliver a foreign policy speech now?

It’s pretty clear that we are in a moment of major change in the world, and we’re rethinking our posture toward the world ― and frankly, China is the huge driver for that. I’ve been to Hong Kong recently and seen for myself there the protests, the situation, the circumstances. In my time on the Armed Services Committee, the last 11 months, one consistent theme has been Chinese expansion, Chinese ambitions. It’s having an effect, not just on our foreign policy but trade policy and economic policy, so it seems to me that we’re in a moment of transition.

We’re also trying to reckon with our commitments in other places around the globe ― particularly in the greater Middle East and our “forever wars,” as they’re being called. I think it’s incumbent upon us at this particular and crucial moment in the country’s history, in our foreign policy, to think through what does the future look like. Let’s think through the basics: What are our core interests? What does it look like to protect our security and our prosperity? What’s it look like to do that for the people of our working and middle classes? And what’s that mean for our foreign policy?