A year has passed since the 2025 Munich Security Conference, where US Vice President J.D. Vance shouted to European leaders, "There's a new sheriff in town now," and conference chairman Christoph Heusgen broke down in tears on the podium. The 2026 Munich Security Conference reconvened last week in Germany. Bringing together European and American leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, this year's conference began with a speech by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that echoed the colonial and imperial era and embraced racist European politicians.

Although it had a more conciliatory tone from a European perspective than Vance's speech a year earlier, its message was along the same lines:
"The West is facing a self-chosen civilizational collapse due to ill-conceived policies stemming from climate 'culture' and mass migration. And it needs to be saved."
Rubio also stated that the US under the Trump administration was determined to establish a new world order, saying, “We are ready to do this alone if necessary, but we prefer and hope to do it together with our friends in Europe.”

These words of Rubio, calling on Europeans to join the US, somewhat reassured European leaders. Even though US President Donald Trump threatened to take Greenland from Denmark whenever he felt like it, the US hadn't completely abandoned them yet. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said to Trump last year, “Daddy” still wanted to act together with Europe, but doing so would require trampling on many things that European civilization represented: according to MAGA members in the US, there was no such thing as a climate crisis, immigrants were “alienating” Europe and the US from their core values ​​and absolutely had to be stopped, and in the “new world order” led by the US, concepts like human rights and democracy were merely details.

Indeed, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she felt “much more relieved” about relations with the US after listening to Rubio’s speech. Just days before the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron had said, “This is a time for awakening. It is time for Europe to awaken.” Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered speeches at the conference seeking to chart a new and independent course for European powers while maintaining the alliance with Washington. Both leaders announced that they had begun talks on European nuclear deterrence. On Saturday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country was “not the Britain of the Brexit years,” arguing for a closer defense relationship with Europe.

The world was changing; Europe needed to feel the support of the US on the one hand, but on the other hand, it needed to fend for itself, especially in the area of ​​defense. Indeed, this need was explicitly stated in the Munich Security Conference Report:
“The world has entered a period of destructive politics. Instead of careful reforms and policy adjustments, comprehensive destruction is on the agenda. The foremost among those who promised to build a stronger and more prosperous nation by freeing their countries from the constraints of the existing order is the current US administration. As a result, 80 years after its construction, the US-led post-1945 international order is now collapsing.”

The report, which points out that political forces preferring destruction to reform (such as far-right political parties in Europe) are gaining momentum in many Western societies, paints a rather pessimistic picture for the future:
“We may see a world shaped by transaction-based agreements instead of principle-based cooperation, private interests instead of public interests, and regional hegemonies instead of universal norms. Ironically, this will be a world that privileges the rich and powerful, not those who place their hopes in destructive politics.”