Key European leaders fired back Sunday after Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s blistering speech over the weekend in which he directly tied the shared history and culture of Western nations to their collective security in the 21st century. Mr. Rubio told those European officials that the U.S. wants to renew trans-Atlantic alliances but seeks partners “proud of their heritage” and not “shackled by guilt and shame.”
Mr. Rubio was the highest-ranking American official to speak at the Munich Security Conference in Germany this year, amid the war between Ukraine and Russia and an increasingly tense U.S.-European dynamic over matters such as the Trump administration’s push to control Greenland. His address offered a big-picture, almost philosophical explanation for the Trump administration’s attitude toward Europe.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is: What exactly are we defending?” he said. “Because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life. And that is what we are defending: a great civilization that has every reason to be proud of its history, confident of its future, and aims to always be the master of its own economic and political destiny.”
Mr. Rubio touted the shared civilization and Christian heritage on both continents. He told European leaders to embrace their own national sovereignty and reject political arguments that seek to shame them into accepting unchecked illegal immigration and, in the process, the slow erosion of their own national identities.
Some European officials objected to the characterization that they are presiding over a decline of Western civilization. In remarks to the Munich forum Sunday, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, now the top foreign policy official for the European Union, said the opposite is true.
“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilizational erasure,” she said.
She argued that the values embodied by European countries should be applauded, not derided.
“We are … pushing humanity forward, trying to defend human rights and all this, which is actually bringing prosperity for people. So that’s why it’s very hard for me to believe these accusations,” Ms. Kallas said.
Those starkly different takes highlight the growing daylight between Europe and the U.S. under President Trump, who for years has publicly criticized Europe for, among other things, not spending enough on its own defense. European nations have dramatically ramped up defense spending in recent years, and some leaders on the continent have directly credited Mr. Trump for the change.
Links between heritage, security
Mr. Rubio tied the issues of heritage, culture, sovereignty and national identities directly to shared Western security in the decades to come. He said that only a reinvigorated Western alliance, one that is proud of its heritage and willing to defend it, can lead the world in commercial space travel, the development of artificial intelligence, automation and supply chains not reliant on China, and a technology-focused economy that drives innovation, creates jobs and lifts people out of poverty.
“We are part of one civilization: Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir,” Mr. Rubio said.
“Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign and as vital as our civilization’s past,” he said. “And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference, and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.”
Mr. Rubio’s address stood in stark contrast with that of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who told the Munich gathering Friday that U.S. leadership in the world is waning fast.
“The United States’ claim to leadership has been challenged and possibly lost,” Mr. Merz said. “In the era of great power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone.”
Mr. Rubio’s speech at times echoed Vice President J.D. Vance’s Munich address last year, but in some ways, the secretary took a more diplomatic tone. Mr. Vance last year shocked Washington’s European allies by haranguing them over their leftist domestic agendas that he said were endangering free speech and Western civilization.
Still, Mr. Rubio made it crystal clear that this administration sees a direct correlation between Western countries that enforce strong borders and fiercely defend their culture and global security.
“We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history,” the secretary said. “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame.
“We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it,” he said. “And this is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it.”
Some prominent Democrats said they feared that Mr. Rubio’s intense focus on U.S.-European cultural bonds risks alienating other key allies around the world.
“His focus on the civilizational ties between the United States and Europe left a number of folks in the audience who I spoke to later, who are trusted partners from Japan, from Korea, from India, democracies that the United States has long partnerships with. It left them somewhat cold,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons, Delaware Democrat, told “Fox News Sunday.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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