US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s address at the Munich Security Conference on February 14 has ignited a fiery debate over the future of sovereignty, with the world’s less muscular nations feeling very nervous.
By explicitly inviting Europe to join the United States in reviving and defending a Western civilisation that once sent “missionaries, pilgrims, soldiers, and explorers” to “settle new continents” and build “vast empires”, Rubio effectively resurrected the language of 19th-century colonialism.
