DEAR READER,

I have seen the familiar joke making the rounds that European officials can always find a way to say some version of “this is a wake-up call for Europe”. Marco Rubio’s speech at this year’s Munich Security Conference might well be another one for the collection. It landed differently depending on who was listening — reassuring some, worrying others, but it did receive a standing ovation. In any case, we unpack it all in this week’s expert opinion by Adam Reichardt.

Enjoy reading this week’s “brief”!

— Giorgi Beroshvili, Editor

The Munich Security Conference has always been one of those pivotal gatherings that sets the geopolitical tone for the year ahead. It was there, in 2007, that Vladimir Putin delivered what became one of the most consequential speeches of the post-Cold War era. His address marked a clear break with Moscow’s earlier rhetoric about partnership with the West and openly challenged the western-led international order.

Putin was especially forceful on NATO enlargement, arguing that “it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation.” With hindsight, that speech reads less like a warning and more like a manifesto. It crystallized Putin’s worldview and Russia’s rejection of the post-Cold War order.

Four years ago, just five days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stood in Munich and declared that Ukraine would defend itself “with or without support of our partners … we will defend our beautiful land no matter if we have 50,000, 150 or one million soldiers of any army on the border.” It was a defiant moment, delivered on the brink of catastrophe.

And last year, after the return of the Trump administration to the White House, it was again in Munich that US Vice President JD Vance announced: “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town.” He argued that the greatest threat facing Europe was not Russia or China, but “from within.”

And that brings us to 2026.

The build-up to this year’s conference was tense. Earlier in the year, US President Donald Trump unsettled European allies by declaring that Greenland “must” belong to the United States. For many in Europe, it felt like yet another wake-up call: the US-led, rules-based international order was no longer a given.

Just days before Munich, NATO defence ministers gathered for a summit on the future of the Alliance. The United States was not represented by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, but by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby. In closed-door discussions, Colby reportedly called for a strategic realignment of NATO rather than a continuation of “business as usual.”

He argued that the post–Cold War model (which he called NATO 2.0) is no longer sustainable. In its place, he proposed a NATO 3.0 where Europe would assume primary responsibility for its own defence, while the United States would prioritize its own hemisphere and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, particularly vis-à-vis China. “A strategy that pretends the United States can indefinitely serve as the primary conventional defender of Europe … is neither sustainable nor prudent,” Colby argued. It was a clear articulation of the new American security posture.

Then came Munich.

The highest-ranking US official to speak this year at Munich was Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In a speech that was measured but far from inspiring, Rubio called for a “new western century” grounded in shared history and civilization. Yet he also sharply criticized European migration policies, climate priorities, and what he described as economic decline.

Compared with Vance’s blunt rhetoric last year, Rubio’s tone was more restrained. But the substance was unmistakable. He reaffirmed the Trump administration’s core view that the rules-based order is coming to an end. The post-Cold War “end of history,” he argued, was a strategic delusion; and that globalization hollowed out western industry and international institutions such as the United Nations and the OSCE had weakened sovereignty and displaced national interest.

European reactions were mixed, but largely sceptical. Many rejected talk of existential “civilizational erasure” as little more than European-bashing, insisting that the EU remains open, resilient, and prosperous. At the same time, a growing number of European leaders acknowledged, some more candidly than others, that Europe must take far greater responsibility for its own defence and strategic autonomy. The US security guarantee can no longer be assumed to be unconditional.

What is perhaps most striking, however, is the comparison that inevitably comes to mind. Place Putin’s 2007 speech alongside Rubio’s 2026 address, and the parallels are difficult to ignore. In both, the post-1991 order is portrayed as ideologically flawed. Global institutions are depicted as detached from real power. Sovereignty, in this telling, has been sacrificed to abstraction. Liberal internationalism, as it functioned after the Cold War, is rejected.

The tone, of course, is different. The geopolitical positions are nowhere near the same. Yet, the underlying message converges in an uncomfortable way: the era of multilateral idealism is over. Great power politics is back. And it is no coincidence that this question will anchor the upcoming issue of New Eastern Europe (which is coming soon!).

Thus, In the aftermath of this year’s Munich Security Conference, Europeans face a defining choice: how will they position themselves in an emerging order shaped less by shared rules and more by power? Reliance on the United States no longer appears viable in the way it once did. And yet, the transatlantic relationship is not disappearing, it is being reconfigured. How it will look a year from now remains uncertain. But we are only at the beginning of 2026.

— Adam Reichardt, Editor in Chief at New Eastern Europe