"The world is changing very fast right in front of us. The old world is gone... We live in a new era in geopolitics, and it's going to require all of us to reexamine what that looks like and what our role is going to be."
That's what Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the press before he boarded a plane to Munich, Germany on Thursday evening.
"The old world is gone."
— The American Conservative (@amconmag) February 13, 2026
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says "we live in a new era of geopolitics. It's going to require all of us to sort of re-examine what that looks like and what our role is going to be."pic.twitter.com/Rkip9NRhZW
Little did we know that this quote was setting the stage for what turned out to be a momentous speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning, a speech that framed the end of one major geopolitical era and the beginning of another.
We may well look back on this speech in Munich as another defining moment in the secretary’s career.
Rubio told European leaders that the post–Cold War era is over, that the "euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion: that we had entered, quote, 'the end of history;' that every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order – an overused term – would now replace the national interest; and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world."
He said that this idea was foolish and "ignored both human nature and it ignored the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history."
While championing the Donald Trump administration's America-First foreign policy, he also reaffirmed the bond between our nations, saying that the Western Hemisphere may be our home, but we're a child of Europe, and we share history, culture, and heritage. "We belong together," he said.
But he also made it clear that the world has reached a turning point and course correction is required. Europe must save itself because, "we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline."
SECRETARY RUBIO: We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West's managed decline. pic.twitter.com/avdbvkUsjc
— Department of State (@StateDept) February 14, 2026
Rubio called on our European allies to revitalize their nations and reject policies leading to their decline. That includes the embracing of "a dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade" and shuttering our plants, which resulted "in large parts of our societies being deindustrialized, shipping millions of working and middle-class jobs overseas, and handing control of our critical supply chains to both adversaries and rivals."
He continued:
We increasingly outsourced our sovereignty to international institutions while many nations invested in massive welfare states at the cost of maintaining the ability to defend themselves. This, even as other countries have invested in the most rapid military buildup in all of human history and have not hesitated to use hard power to pursue their own interests. To appease a climate cult, we have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people, even as our competitors exploit oil and coal and natural gas and anything else – not just to power their economies, but to use as leverage against our own.
And in a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people. We made these mistakes together, and now, together, we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward, to rebuild.
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. 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.
But it wasn't just a critique or warning about globalization. Rubio explained that it's the fundamental part of national security.
"The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending, because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life," he said. "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."
Rubio also spoke of how "we can no longer place the so-called global order above the vital interests of our people and our nations," and how we must reform global institutions. He used the United Nations as an example, explaining that it has potential to be a "tool for good" but right now, it's basically useless.
But we cannot ignore that today, on the most pressing matters before us, it has no answers and has played virtually no role. It could not solve the war in Gaza. Instead, it was American leadership that freed captives from barbarians and brought about a fragile truce. It had not solved the war in Ukraine. It took American leadership and partnership with many of the countries here today just to bring the two sides to the table in search of a still-elusive peace.
It was powerless to constrain the nuclear program of radical Shia clerics in Tehran. That required 14 bombs dropped with precision from American B-2 bombers. And it was unable to address the threat to our security from a narco-terrorist dictator in Venezuela. Instead, it took American Special Forces to bring this fugitive to justice.
He concluded: "...America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends. We want to do it together with you, with a Europe that is proud of its heritage and of its history; with a Europe that has the spirit of creation of liberty that sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization; with a Europe that has the means to defend itself and the will to survive."
The speech, which ended with a long standing ovation, was similar to that of Vice President JD Vance's Munich moment from last year but a bit softer, a bit more diplomatic. Rubio assured the Europeans that the United States is not abandoning them, but the old playbook is shelved. If the alliance is to continue, Europe must adapt and defend the true interests of its people and Western civilization unlike ever before.
You could almost hear a sigh of a relief in the room, but how these European leaders will actually responds remains to be seen. I, for one, am not particularly hopeful.
Watch the entire speech here:
Want to support conservative media? You can do so by becoming a PJ Media VIP member. It's less than $20 for the entire year, and you get some cool perks too. We'll see you in the comments section!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member