US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference served as another building block in the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
The speech on Saturday was widely expected to hammer home some of the themes the current US administration is known for, such as its skepticism about the current world order.
Rubio’s speech was praised in some sectors for how it had articulated America’s role in the world today. It also was criticized.
At its heart, Rubio’s speech was about giving us one more glimpse into the shifting world order. Prior to his address, CNN said the speech would likely show that the “old order” no longer exists.
This twist of phrasing was interesting, because what CNN appears to have meant is that the “new world order” promised by US president George H.W Bush in the 1990s is no longer relevant.
Rubio outlines Trump-era foreign policy at Munich conference
The Trump administration isn’t creating a new world order, but it may be doing away with some aspects of what had already been considered a new world order. As such, it is bookending some 35 years of US hegemony in the world.
What were the headlines the day after the speech? There had been some pushback against the notion that Europe is facing “civilizational erasure,” according to a headline in The Guardian.
The Democrats had said US President Donald Trump would be out of office in three years, and Europeans could expect a shift back to the traditional US embrace of Europe, according to another report.
They must be confident that the GOP won’t win the next election to make this prediction. It’s possible that the GOP after Trump will be even more isolationist than it is today.
A CNN take on Rubio’s speech interpreted it through a Valentine’s Day prism. “Rubio’s Valentine’s Day message to Europe: Change or get dumped,” its report said.
Author and hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio wrote on X/Twitter: “The world order has broken down... Every world power has its time in the sun, thanks to the uniqueness of their circumstances and the nature of their character and culture (e.g., they have the essential elements of a strong work ethic, smarts, discipline, education, etc.), but they all eventually decline.”
“Traumatic declines can lead to some of the worst periods in history, when big fights over wealth and power prove extremely costly both economically and in human lives,” he concluded.
Let’s take a look at what Rubio said at the conference that may be raising eyebrows. When the Munich Security Conference began in 1963, Europe was divided, he said. It was divided, as US president John F. Kennedy had said, between a world half free and half slave.
“At the time of that first gathering, Soviet Communism was on the march,” Rubio said. “Thousands of years of Western civilization hung in the balance. At that time, victory was far from certain.”
He cited the book by Francis Fukuyama, The End of History, which most people growing up in the 1990s were told to read. Rubio said the book had predicted that we would all live in liberal democracies where “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.”
THIS IS Rubio’s exaggerated interpretation of the new world order being proposed in the 1990s.
While some – particularly neoliberals – did in fact believe that such a world would emerge, the world Bush actually proposed was not so Left-leaning. He proposed rules that would keep men like Saddam Hussein from invading countries.
Bush had supported peace, but not a borderless world. In Bush’s wake, however, came the Clinton years and America’s experiment with humanitarian interventions.
“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,” Rubio said.
As part of Western civilization, the US and Europe share a history, he said, adding: “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.”
Rubio said he wants to see a strong Europe. Countries need to return to controlling their own borders to regain this sense of strength, he said, citing examples of how America was using its power to achieve its goals as part of the Trump doctrine in terms of US policy.
Rubio cited the US airstrikes on Iran last year, its strikes against narco-traffickers, and the raid to bring Venezuela’s dictator to justice.
“In a perfect world, all of these problems and more would be solved by diplomats and strongly worded resolutions,” he said. “But we do not live in a perfect world, and we cannot continue to allow those who blatantly and openly threaten our citizens and endanger our global stability to shield themselves behind abstractions of international law which they themselves routinely violate.”
Rubio described US history and the Trump administration’s view of American and Western civilization.
There is much to be learned from the speech. What matters is how it frames the current struggle for the world order.
If the “new world order” of the 1990s is indeed seeing a curtain fall, then what is the new “new world order” proposed today?
At the moment, it is the Trump doctrine, and that doctrine has many facets. Trump has pushed for a new US commitment to the Western hemisphere, something that has been compared to the Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century.
He has also been willing to use US military power to achieve goals, but he is reticent about endless wars and committing US troops as “boots on the ground.”
Other aspects of Trump’s foreign policy have been anchored in transactional agreements: essentially, the US providing support in exchange for something. Another aspect is his push for peace in various regions, including the Congo in Africa and South Asia.
It remains to be seen how Rubio’s speech will play out in the long run. European leaders have become accustomed to the Trump administration’s views by now.
They know that the White House is skeptical about the United Nations and international organizations. They also know Trump has pushed for a Board of Peace to work on issues in Gaza and other places.
Most European powers have been skeptical of this approach.
It also remains to be seen how the concepts sketched out by Rubio will play out, regarding a possible new Iran deal and other issues in the Middle East.