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Europe stands at a crossroads. To save itself and our cherished Transatlantic alliance, it must not only change policy but also recommit itself to the common inheritance of Western Civilization.
That was the message Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered this weekend at the Munich Security Conference, in a defining foreign policy speech of our time. At an affair best-known for platitudes and navel-gazing, he diagnosed the roots of Europe’s decline and provided a clear vision for how America and its European allies can unite, again, to preserve the most important alliance in human history. It could not have come at a better time.
Formed in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, the NATO alliance has underpinned American, European, and even global security for decades. It held back the march of Communism. It brought peace to a continent reeling from centuries of brutal warfare. It reunified Europe.
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It is an alliance bonded by sacrifice and history. Like generations of American soldiers before and since, I fought alongside our NATO allies in the 82nd Airborne, crossing into Iraq with a French unit at the outset of the First Gulf War. And when America was attacked on 9/11, our NATO allies answered our call. They spilled blood in the mountains of Afghanistan and streets of Iraq alongside our young men and women in uniform.
That bond remains, but, Secretary Rubio warned, it has grown weaker as our allies have pursued policies of managed decline. They have crippled their productive capacity with so-called "green energy" policies, allowed deindustrialization to neuter their defense capabilities, and neglected the very fabric of their own societies through mass, uncontrolled immigration. They have failed to live up to their end of the bargain in the alliance, and the marriage between the United States and Europe now needs fixing.
However, the roots of decline run deeper than policy choices, to the very soul of Western society. Secretary Rubio sees this truth, and that’s why all Americans should hear his speech.
The remarks remind us what leaders in the United States and throughout Europe are tasked with defending: a sacred inheritance from the forebearers of Western Civilization — the civilization that gave us Beethoven, established the rule of law, built the Sistine Chapel, sustained a rich philosophical tradition, and took us to the moon — but which now faces grave and existential threats.
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It is this shared bond of history and cultural inheritance — alongside the cold realities of geopolitics — that holds our nations together. Not vague abstractions, impotent international organizations, or even transatlantic trade.
Our European allies have forgotten this fact. Too often, they have traded national interest and hard power for vague and moralistic appeals to international institutions and a bloated welfare state. The Trump administration, as articulated in Secretary Rubio’s speech, has rejected that failed status quo and championed an honest, hard-nosed view of foreign policy designed to promote our national interests.
Under President Donald Trump, this administration put that policy to action. It has reasserted American sovereignty and our nation’s exceptional role as a leader on the world stage. American leadership, not the United Nations or any other international body, has brought peace to the Middle East, toppled Iran’s nuclear program, and ended the reign of a narco-terrorist dictator.
This isn’t a divorce from Europe, retreat from the world stage, or an abdication of America’s role as a world leader. Nor is it the misguided doctrine of internationalists who were eager to spend blood and treasure to export ideology to far-off lands. It’s a sober understanding of the realities of power and what it takes to secure the United States and Europe as we face a changing world together.
Secretary Rubio’s speech marks a defining moment for the U.S.-led global order. Just as crucially, it serves as a powerful call for the champions of the West to defend a shared civilization with a beautiful past — and a future that must be met by an alliance built on this deep and enduring bond.
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I trust many in Europe will heed the call. On a recent visit to Norway, Finland, Estonia and Denmark with several of my U.S. Senate colleagues, we met with leaders laser-focused on rebuilding their hard power, deterring the Russian bear on their borders, and restoring the heart and soul of the NATO alliance. Many of those I spoke to understood what is at stake. They had learned the hard lessons of the War in Ukraine and Europe’s inept response.
I hope those voices will trumpet Secretary Rubio and be "unapologetic in our heritage and proud of this common inheritance."
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. DAVID McCMORICK
David McCormick, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
