Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Eldar Mamedov
“U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in the Munich Security Conference this weekend to sooth transatlantic anxieties. After Vice President J.D. Vance’s criticisms of the old continent in 2025, the European dignitaries were looking for a more conventional American performance. What they got was a peculiar mix of primacist nostalgia and civilizational foreboding, with an explicit desire to forge a path of restoration together. ‘We are not looking for a rupture,’ the Secretary of State told his audience. ‘We want to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history,’ in a reference to the West. Predictably, Rubio – a neoconservative favorite in a pre-Trump GOP – ensured that it was America’s job to lead.” (02/14/26)