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Opinion
– US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech in Munich last month appeared to seduce the European elite who back President Trump against the “rest,” especially the resource-rich Global South.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
New international order?
Recognizing the deliberate demolition of the post-1945 world order as a “wrecking ball,” the theme of February’s 62nd Munich Security Conference was “Under Destruction.”
Considered the world’s leading forum for international security, the conference program made clear which interests and security took priority.
In his first year, Trump 2.0 bombed ten nations, in addition to threatening aggression against four other Latin American nations, but none were represented in Munich!
The Munich conference threw away all pretense of objectivity and diplomacy on Iran and applauded the Israeli-led military intervention to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized the world’s return to great power competition after the post-Cold War “unipolar moment,” making his loyalties clear.
At Davos in January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney noted that the geopolitical “breakup” of Trump 2.0 had forced many to abandon previous illusions.
New dangerous trends have been emerging, almost no “order”. Trump insists that American supremacy must be even more dominant, isolating rivals rather than confronting them.
K Kuhaneetha Bai
In January 2026, the United States withdrew from dozens of organizations, mainly multilateral ones. The old rules, even those revised during his first term, no longer exist, alarming many who were used to them.
The “rules-based order” of Trump’s predecessors had offered a legal and diplomatic fig leaf for subordinating other states to American supremacy.
Now, Washington repudiates the same framework it demanded others accept, in place of the seemingly universal but sometimes inconvenient “rule of law.”
Instead of diplomatic and trade negotiations, economic and military threats prevail. Without velvet gloves of soft power, the chainmail fists of military force and economic weaponry are exposed.
Reuniting the West
Rubio welcomed this “new era in geopolitics,” urging improved transatlantic relations while reiterating Trump 2.0 demands that Europe pay more, albeit more gently.
After the end of the Cold War, Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations called for defending the “Judeo-Christian” West against the “rest,” including Catholic Latin America.
In Munich, Cuban-American Rubio reinvented himself as a white Christian European, warning his European audience that the West is under threat.
For Rubio, “the West had been expanding” to “populate new continents and build vast empires spanning the globe” for the past five centuries.
Their story obscured the dispossession, exploitation and massacre of indigenous peoples by Western imperialism around the world, especially in the Global South.
Praising the superiority of European civilization and values, he lamented the setbacks suffered by these “great Western empires” due to the “godless communist” and “anti-colonial” uprisings after World War II.
Instead of progress inspired by the American Declaration and War of Independence of 1776, for Rubio, national self-determination was a civilizational setback.
“We in the United States have no interest in being polite and orderly guardians of the West’s controlled decline.” For Rubio, no more “liberal” rhetoric about human rights, freedom and democracy.
He did not hesitate to invoke racist and white supremacist mythology and crusading ideology to demand stronger armies to defend Western civilization.
The renewed Western alliance will share its common civilizational identity, united by “Christian faith, culture, heritage, language and ancestry.”
Ethno-chauvinist beliefs about race, religion, and culture are the new foundations of solidarity and authority. ‘Defense of Christians’ became the pretext for the US bombing of Nigeria on Christmas Day 2025.
Another Western century?
Rubio appealed for pan-European Western unity against multilateralism and other threats, and called for increased military spending and immigration controls.
He urged Europe to “take back control” of ‘Western’ industries and supply chains. After all, NATO allies have joined the United States in seizing foreign assets at will.
Like a vassal and desperate for reassurance after a year of blatant slights and threats from Trump, the audience greeted his speech with a standing ovation.
Fearing that Washington could negotiate with Moscow over Ukraine without them, European leaders have stepped up demands for an all-out war against Russia.
Rubio is working to secure the supply of critical minerals against “extortion from other powers,” including Europe, through opaque bilateral agreements secured with threats.
Trump 2.0 is making military threats for profit, including property rights, mining and other post-war rights. For many, the US-Europe split in NATO is not about peace, but rather about sharing the costs and spoils of the Ukraine war.
While funding for European welfare states and other “social” purposes continues to fall, military budgets continue to rise, as Trump demands.
Meanwhile, Merz has invoked military Keynesianism to justify Germany’s largest military budget since the Cold War, aimed at strengthening NATO.
Ostensibly to strengthen national security, the Trump administration has cut social programs. Instead, American military spending is being prioritized.
Meanwhile, the United States Congress has shown its support by approving a budget for the War Department larger than that requested by the Pentagon.
Arms contracts have mainly benefited established companies, while ‘tech bros’ increasingly supply newer weapons and related systems using artificial intelligence.
Post-Trump, European elites are strengthening their already powerful militaries and securing trade deals for their own benefit, rather than defending the peaceful multilateral cooperation they once advocated.
IPS UN Office
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