On February 14, 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a laudatory speech about Europe and its legacy at the Munich Security Conference. He noted, however, that Europe is weakening. "We don't want our allies to be weak," he said.
His remarks initially were well received by the European political leaders and journalists in the room; not for long. Several journalists soon mentioned that, while Rubio appeared friendlier toward Europe than US Vice President J.D. Vance's had been a year earlier, he was still "arrogant" in presuming that Europe needed advice on how to be stronger.
Some recalled that the Trump administration's November 2025 National Security Strategy had warned that Europe faces the "prospect of civilizational erasure" — a claim they described as an "insult" to Europe.
Political leaders were also quick to express their rejection of what Rubio had said. The European Union's foreign affairs and security policy chief, Kaja Kallas, in her own speech in Munich, declared: "Contrary to what some may say... Europe is not facing civilizational erasure."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made a point of emphasizing that "European values" were not those championed by the Trump administration.
These reactions unfortunately have not changed the terrifying fact that Europe's erasure as a civilization is underway. Europe is on a path toward rapid, widespread decline — potentially irreversible. It is already extremely late in the day. Unless drastic actions are taken to reverse firmly entrenched trends, European civilization, simply demographically, will soon be part of the past.
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