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America’s secretary of state addressed the Munich Security Conference in Germany over the weekend. As the speech unfolded on the other side of the ocean, excerpts and clips immediately began circulating on social media.
This was not, it seemed, a dull and unmemorable recitation of boilerplate diplomatic jargon — nor was it a gratuitous boat-rocking exercise in rankling our allies with harsh indictments of their shortcomings. It was something different. Something refreshing. Something necessary.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio managed to articulate an “America First” agenda and worldview quite forcefully and unapologetically, while also underscoring a profound desire to maintain and strengthen our Western alliances. His remarks drew swift and enthusiastic virtual applause from many Americans, very much including the conservative Trump base. That’s not necessarily a unique achievement or a difficult feat to pull off, in and of itself. But to draw cheers from those quarters while also earning a standing ovation from the assembled crowd of European diplomatic and military elites? That is a notable accomplishment.
On Rubio’s substance and style, the old adage many of us were taught as children undoubtedly applies: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Rubio could have sharpened his phrasing and word choice to slice deeper at the Europeans, which would have delighted many American voters of a certain persuasion. But he would have lost the room. Alternatively, he could have cozied up to the Europeans by serving up cosmopolitan bromides and internationalist sloganeering, risking a sense of dismay or even betrayal among many people back home.
Instead, he threaded the needle with exceptional skill. He balanced charm with force and moving prose with moral clarity. He delivered what was a fundamentally tough message to Europe, straight to their faces, but enveloped it in the language of affection, partnership, and camaraderie. This is how, over the course of 20 minutes, his honed and powerful verbiage elicited cheers from disparate audiences who view each other with some degree of disdain, if not contempt. A diplomatic masterstroke.
“Marco Rubio’s Munich Speech was word perfect,” raved heterodox intellectual Konstantin Kisin, on the other side of the Atlantic. “The Americans couldn’t be clearer: they love Europe and Britain, they see themselves as the keepers of the flame of Western civilisation and they want us to pull our weight. I just hope our leaders listen.”
On our side of the ocean, American foreign policy columnist Eli Lake described the speech and its response as a minor diplomatic miracle, marveling at how Rubio “delivered a bracing critique of European complacency — and got a standing ovation for it.”
The keynote felt like an intervention, Lake wrote, in which the American secretary of state played the part of “the frustrated patriarch who had just learned his family fortune was being frittered away by his dilettante children.” But the children, in this analogy, also loved it. How did Rubio pull it off? Consider this passage (emphasis mine):
“The United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. … We are part of one civilization — Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir. And so this is why we Americans may sometimes come off as a little direct and urgent in our counsel. This is why President Trump demands seriousness and reciprocity from our friends here in Europe. The reason why, my friends, is because we care deeply. We care deeply about your future and ours. And if at times we disagree, our disagreements come from our profound sense of concern about a Europe with which we are connected — not just economically, not just militarily. We are connected spiritually, and we are connected culturally. We want Europe to be strong. We believe that Europe must survive, because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately, our destiny is and will always be intertwined with yours.” (Applause)
Here, Rubio wrapped a profound critique of European decadence and unseriousness in loving, almost familial, language. In essence, we need you to be much better, together with us, because we care about our relationship, shared heritage, and aligned values so much. Rubio didn’t adopt a hectoring or lecturing tone, even as he landed “tough love’’ haymakers throughout the address. We belong together for all the best reasons, he warmly admonishes the Europeans, and we don’t want to strike out on our own without you. We’ve built so much, jointly.
He embraced Europe and the trans-Atlantic alliance in a way that the Europeans want and need to hear, but Rubio’s underlying point was hardly an unalloyed love letter. Just before the passage quoted above, Rubio laid the predicate for his artfully worded warning.
“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.”
He revisited this theme toward the end of the speech:
“This is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with 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. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history. What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognizes that what has ailed our societies is not just a set of bad policies but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency. An alliance — the alliance that we want is one that is not paralyzed into inaction by fear — fear of climate change, fear of war, fear of technology. Instead, we want an alliance that boldly races into the future. And the only fear we have is the fear of the shame of not leaving our nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children …
Above all, [America wants] an alliance based on the recognition that we, the West, have inherited together — what we have inherited together is something that is unique and distinctive and irreplaceable, because this, after all, is the very foundation of the trans-Atlantic bond. Acting together in this way, we will not just help recover a sane foreign policy. It will restore to us a clearer sense of ourselves. It will restore a place in the world, and in so doing, it will rebuke and deter the forces of civilizational erasure that today menace both America and Europe alike. So, in a time of headlines heralding the end of the trans-Atlantic era, let it be known and clear to all that this is neither our goal nor our wish — because for us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.” (Applause)
The specific applause lines were expressions of U.S.-European kinship, shared values, and linked destiny. But Rubio was very much spelling out for his audience that while America doesn’t want to defend Western civilization alone, she will if Europe fails. Or, candidly, continues to fail. Stop allowing uncontrolled mass migration, stop building unsustainable welfare states at the expense of defense imperatives. Stop self-flagellating over the “purported sins of past generations.” Drop the guilt. Be proud. Stand up — alongside us.
These were urgent, vital pleas, packaged and delivered with deftness and grace. That Rubio hit the right notes and coaxed positive responses out of his audience within and beyond the hall is not really in dispute. But Rubio employed a generous quantity of rhetorical honey to try to spur a substantive response. What remains to be seen is whether European leaders’ enraptured reception will translate into meaningful action.
TIM SCOTT TALKS RUBIO, AOC, AND THE MIDTERMS
Finally, following the secretary’s remarks, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), whose own flub-riddled Munich jaunt has been deservedly panned, dismissed his message as a “revisionist MAGA speech” that represented a “pure appeal to ‘Western culture.’”
Setting aside the former mad libs-style attack, the latter description is essentially true. Yes, it was, quite overtly and intentionally, a stirring defense of Western culture and Western civilization. That she sees this as a diss only illustrates how important the task ahead is. Western civilization must assert itself against illiberal, authoritarian forces abroad, and also beat back cancerous ideologies from within. Her reflexively negative review helped prove Rubio’s point.
