MUNICH, Germany — The American delegation arrived at the Munich Security Conference hoping to strike a conciliatory chord. This past Saturday, taking the stage for what was largely seen as the summit’s main event, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the historical and cultural ties between Europe and the United States, promising reform rather than rupture.
For most, however, the 20-minute speech didn’t land as intended but rather confirmed what was already suspected: that Rubio’s advertised “friendship” will only exist on Washington’s terms.
Publicly, European leaders and officials — including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — expressed relief at the prospect of mending ties. Privately, however, few believed in anything approximating a return to normalcy.
“Rubio fooled nobody,” Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of the Eurasia Group told The Parliament. “The speech was seen for what it is: a doubling down by the administration on this MAGA worldview that is totally in conflict and contradiction with Europeans’ assessment of the world.”
Even as both sides pledged to repair what’s been broken, the world’s biggest security conference was largely defined by the gaping cracks in the transatlantic relationship, and the ensuing question of how Europe can stake out a path without its fickle ally.
New tone, same U.S. message
During last year’s security conference in Munich, U.S. Vice President JD Vance stunned the world when he claimed that the biggest threat to Europe wasn’t Russia or China, but the erosion of the continent’s own values.
This time around, the tone was softer, as Rubio sought to steady nerves after months of escalating tensions.
Some were reassured. Jackson Janes, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said it reaffirmed that bonds between Europe and the United States endure, even if moving from rhetoric to policy will prove difficult.
To most, however, the speech came off as a slightly more G-rated version of Vance’s remarks in 2025, as Rubio invoked the U.S. National Security Strategy and blamed mass migration and climate policies for economic decline. Any mention of Ukraine was also conspicuously absent.
While Europe advocates economic pressure on Moscow, U.S. President Donald Trump has continued to urge Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make concessions to reach a peace deal. The security conference also comes a mere month after Washington’s threats to seize Greenland prompted European troop deployments to the island.
“We’ve got to work with the Trump administration in the short to medium term while the Europeans are vulnerable,” Rahman said.
“There's going to be major friction going forward: in the Ukraine theater, perhaps in Greenland, and it's absolutely going to emerge in the context of how Europe is regulating and thinking about free speech and big tech."
Finding common ground will not be an easy task, Janes said, and it begs the question: “What is Europe willing to agree on in working with Washington?”
Towards a NATO 3.0
One area of broad agreement is that Europe must shoulder much more of its own security.
The result is what officials on both sides of the Atlantic have started to refer to as “NATO 3.0”: a more European alliance, marked by higher defense spending and stronger deterrence capabilities after decades of post–Cold War complacency.
Looking ahead, Von der Leyen framed Europe’s strategic dilemma in pragmatic terms. The choice, she said, is not between the status quo and full independence from the U.S. There is an “in-between” — and Europe is now being pushed to define it.
The Commission chief described what she called a “true European awakening.” The bloc, she argued, must speed up decision-making through enhanced cooperation, bring Article 42.7 — the EU’s Article 5 equivalent — into practical effect, and expand cooperation with like-minded partners such as the United Kingdom, Norway, Iceland and Canada.
“We in Europe should be ready and willing to use our strength assertively and proactively to protect our security interests,” Von der Leyen said, adding that the new ad-hoc security arrangements emerging across the continent will need to be formalized, starting with the UK.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer seemed to be on board. Declaring the Brexit era over, he made the case for a more European NATO that would reduce the continent’s structural dependence on Washington without breaking up the alliance.
“I’m talking about a vision of European security and greater European autonomy that does not herald U.S. withdrawal but answers the call for more burden-sharing in full,” Starmer said.
Elena Lazarou, director general of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, said that while the EU is investing more in much-needed military capabilities, member states should be doing more together.
For that to materialize a join threat perception is needed. Without it, she said, deeper cooperation on defense, competitiveness or even climate policy will remain constrained.
“Member states must feel that the threat they perceive as the highest to their national interests is equally important to all the other 26,” she told The Parliament on the sidelines of the conference. “A joint perception will also mean a binding sense of collective defense, solidarity, and mutual assistance."
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