[Sharing] Rubio gives green light to new era of US-European colonialism – Roger McKenzie, Morning Star

[my illustration: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio waves, next to Chairman of the Munich Security Conference Wolfgang Ischinger, as he gets a standing ovation after his speech at the Munich Security Conference, on February 14, 2026 (Alex Brandon / Pool via REUTERS)]

UNITED STATES Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave the green light to European leaders for a new era of colonialism.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Mr Rubio offered partnership between the US and Europe to recolonise the global South.

He said: “For five centuries, before the end of the second world war, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.”

With no mention of mass genocides or the enslavement of around 20 million Africans, Mr Rubio complained that “the great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swathes of the map in the years to come.”

Mr Rubio, who polls reveal to be the most popular of the leading Republicans, then explained that the “West’s age of dominance had come to an end and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past.

“But together, our predecessors recognised that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make.”

He added: “This is what we did together once before and this is what President [Donald] Trump and the US want to do again now, together with you.”

Mr Rubio received a standing ovation from European politicians keen to re-establish themselves as leaders on the world stage.

Before the speech European leaders expressed scepticism over the future commitment of the US to the Nato military alliance.

Opening the conference on Friday German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the so-called international rules-based order “no longer exists” and that the world has entered an era “openly characterised by power and, above all, great power politics.”

He acknowledged the “rift between Europe and the US,” and ‬urged Europe to rely on its own strengths to safeguard its interests and values.‬

French President Emmanuel Macron insisted on Friday that Europe must learn to become a “geopolitical power” and must reduce its overdependencies.‬

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told the conference on Saturday that “hard power” was the currency of the age.

Sir Keir called for a “more European Nato” and stressed that Europe must “stand on its own feet” to protect its people and way of life [end]

The original article

Marco Rubio’s verbatim

This is the path that President Trump and the United States has embarked upon. It is the path we ask you here in Europe to join us on. It is a path we have walked together before and hope to walk together again. For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding – its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.

But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.

Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe that the West’s age of dominance had come to an end and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past. But together, our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make. This is what we did together once before, and the United States want to do again now, together with you.

And this is why we do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker. We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.

And 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.

That speech dramatically illustrates what I have already described in the context of the war in Ukraine: the alliance of US neocons and European oligarchs, of whom Emmanuel Macron, for example, is merely an errand boy. Prepare for decades of resource wars, waged by Western imperialists who are refusing to accept their inevitable decline.

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