US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a “man of peace” between the US and the EU, after the frequent and repeated clashes of recent months. Rubio spoke on the second day of the Munich Security Conference on “The United States in the World,” followed by a conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on China’s global role.
The United States has “no interest in being the polite and orderly guardians of the West’s managed decline” and instead aims to “revitalize an old friendship,” Rubio reassured. His words are heavy especially because they come after those of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who yesterday opened the proceedings with a speech defined as “historic” in which he said that the world order “no longer exists” in its post-Cold War form and criticized US foreign policy under Trump.
What Rubio said
“We don’t want weak allies, because that makes us weaker. We want allies who know how to defend themselves, so that no adversary is ever tempted to test our collective strength. We don’t want allies shackled by guilt and shame, but allies who are proud of their culture and heritage, willing and able to defend our civilization with us,” Rubio said.
The US Secretary of State rejected the idea of an “inevitable decline”, arguing that “decline is a choice” and that today, as in the post-war period, it should be rejected. “We do not want allies who rationalize breaking the status quo instead of addressing what is needed to fix it,” he insisted, speaking of an alliance to be “reinvigorated” against “the syndrome of mistrust and complacency.” Then a message to the Europeans: “We are not trying to separate, but to revitalize an ancient friendship”, recalling how NATO troops “fought, bled and died side by side”. “We are charting the course for a new century of prosperity – he concluded – and we want to do it together”.
The role of the UN
For Rubio, the United Nations and the main international organizations must be “rebuilt and reformed” to face new challenges. According to Rubio, the UN has “enormous potential”, but has repeatedly proven “impotent”, failing to resolve the crises in Gaza and Ukraine.
“In a perfect world these problems would be solved by diplomats and resolutions,” Rubio said, admitting, however, that “we don’t live in a perfect world” and that those who openly threaten global security cannot continue to be allowed to hide behind abstractions of international law that they regularly violate.
The “mea culpa”
And in yet another passage Rubio pointed out: “We Americans can sometimes seem a little direct and blunt in our advice. … The reason, my friends, is because we care deeply. We care deeply about your future and ours, and if we sometimes disagree, our disagreements stem from our deep sense of concern for a Europe with which we are connected, not just economically, not just militarily, we are connected spiritually and culturally.”