Peace In Our Time?

At Munich, Rubio played the less-horrible cop

All eyes were on Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference today: Would he – the seemingly only “normal” in the Trump Administration – mitigate the winds of hostility coming at Europe from the United States these days?

To recap real quick, these are the winds: The US under Trump initiated a trade war with Europe (and the rest of the world); it preferred dictatorial aggressor Russia to democratic victim Ukraine and largely ended aid to Ukraine’s defense; has been backing far-right European parties that want to break up the EU and thus weaken Europe, exactly as Putin does; accused Europe of civilizational decline for having too many immigrants (though the minority population in the US is actually far higher); and last month for weeks seemed to threaten military force against NATO ally Denmark, seeking to seize Greenland.

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There’s a sense in Europe that after a year of “handling” Trump (epitomized by NATO chief Mark Rutte’s undignified fawning), it’s better to get tougher. The EU has in recent weeks struck freer-trade deals with India and South America and it has been boosting defense spending and propping up Ukraine. So at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference, which is actually the real global leadership meeting (as opposed to the UN General Assembly), German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron both emphasized Europe’s need to raise its geopolitical profile independent of the US.

And Britain’s Keir Starmer warned of the threat from Russia, which is also a #^%$-you to Trump. At last year’s Munich Conference, VP Vance claimed the real threat to Europe was not Russia but from within. Something about “free speech.”

Into the fray on Saturday stepped Rubio. He seems to be something of a less-horrible cop compared to Vance.

Rubio started off badly upon arrival on Friday, presenting the Trump Administration’s arson as historical reality rather than political choice — as though the international system had shifted of its own accord and responsible leaders now simply have to manage the consequences. But the instability he is describing did not descend like weather — it is the direct result of a very narrow victory for Trump against a weak candidate in a 2024 election in which obliberating the Western alliance was not in fact discussed.

Still, in what passes for good news these days, Rubio chose a version of reassurance. He emphasized continuity of identity and history, declaring that “the fate of Europe will never be irrelevant to our own.”

But then he started berating the Europeans again. “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. And this is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is what was what is necessary to fix it. For we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West's managed decline.”

To most Europeans, what is causing the West’s decline is Trump’s abandonment of the transatlantic alliance. Yes, there is a wokeness problem, but that resides no less and probably more in America. So, it’s a little bizarre.

Still, there was applause for Rubio’s comment that the US and Europe are “bound together by one civilization — Western civilization.” The line drew applause – and that formulation is actually important in a way that might be useful. For years, debates within both the United States and Europe have been shaped by a pronounced discomfort with civilizational language. Political and academic currents often treated explicit references to “Western civilization” as suspect — either outdated or morally compromised. In the most polemical versions of this critique, pride in Western historical identity was as practically racist.

This one is complex. You don’t need to be a slavery nostalgist to bristle at the fact that universities have cancelled Western civilization studies and go around apologizing for existing on indigenous land. There has indeed been a broad backlash against narratives that many citizens perceived as demanding cultural self-denunciation. This is actually happening in both Europe and the US.

But it is not clear what Rubio wants of the Europeans. In fact, Europe hardly requires instruction on border enforcement. Over the past several years, European governments of varying ideological stripes have tightened asylum systems, strengthened external frontier controls, and pursued policies explicitly designed to curb irregular migration. The politics of immigration have evolved not because of American pressure but because European electorates themselves forced the issue. Rubio’s speech, therefore, intersected with debates Europe has already been having — sometimes bitterly — for a decade.

There’s something almost funny going on. Rubio is more interesting than just a less-horrible cop. It’s hard to believe that he believes the Trumpy nonsense. There is no way he wants to gut democracy, eliminate USAID, deport innocents, pretend taiffs are paid by other countries, and so on. Yes, he probably likes the US throwing its weight around the Caribbean, because of his anti-Castro Cuban roots, and he definitely hates Hamas (and rightly so). But basically, he just sold his soul to be the American foreign minister and to have a (weak) shot at the GOP nomination in 2028. It’s not dignified, but it is somehow undertandable, and perhaps he’s limiting some damage. Something of a tragic figure. Or tragicomic.

It is lamentable, though, that he skipped a key meeting of European leaders on Ukraine on Friday. I imagine he had no choice — Trump ordered this as yet another instance of Putin bootlickery. The Europeans are moving on and will support Ukraine as best they can, though. There is too much at stake for them, as surrender on Ukraine might whet a Russian appetite that threatens them directly.

The real verdict on all this will come in November, from US voters who can choose to rein in Trump by handing Congress to the Democrats. Perhaps some of the Europeans will take the advice of AQL and start messaging to them that America have a lot to lose by so upsetting Europe: the EU plus the UK account for most foreign direct investment in the United States, hold much of America’s debt and account for a quarter of its exports, including a huge proportion of the defense industry’s revenue. Maybe America should treat them with a bit of respect, and leave their windmills alone as well.

Meanwhile, about 200,000 people rallied on the Theresienwiese fairgrounds against Iran’s Islamic Republic while the Munich Security Conference convened nearby. The crowd chanted “change, change, regime change,” waved the pre-1979 lion-and-sun Iranian flag, and held up posters of Reza Pahlavi (the late Shah’s son) —some even wearing “Make Iran Great Again” caps. Pahlavi, speaking on the conference sidelines, urged a “global day of action” and appealed for outside help, framing it as a humanitarian intervention after January’s massacres by the regime.

No one knows what to make of Trump on Iran. As we wrote last week, many – especially in Israel, but also Arabs – fear that in the talks now underway the mullahs will make a chump out of Trump, considering that he encouraged Iranians to protest, warned the regime not to kill them, and has ignored the killings, now seeming to merely want a deal on nuclear enrichment.

And yet on Saturday, Trump reportedly said regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen.” While that is not a promise for action, and he probably still prefers an accommodation he can sell to his clueless acolytes as an amazing victory, it does at least constitute words that are true.

Since Trump doesn’t like Zelensky, let’s hope he didn’t hear the Ukrainian president’s statements over the weekend. He met with Pahlavi in Munich, voiced support for the Iranian people, and stressed the need to strengthen sanctions against dictatorial regimes.

If the free world still has a leader, I’m not sure it is not Zelensky.