Slow-Motion Collapse of Everything
A dispatch from the international chaos desk
The Munich Security Conference wrapped up last week, and if you were expecting the kind of drama that JD Vance delivered in 2024 — when he essentially flew to Bavaria to tell European leaders they were pathetic losers and then got back on his plane — you were left somewhat disappointed. This year the Americans sent Marco Rubio instead. Little Marco, as Trump once affectionately nicknamed him, is a more systemically palatable creature than Vance, the sort of man European diplomats feel they can share a canapé with without instinctively checking their wallets afterward.
Rubio delivered a thirty-minute speech that will be remembered primarily for two remarkable absences: he never once mentioned Russia, and he never named NATO. Not once. This caused considerable nervous energy in the conference halls, the diplomatic equivalent of a doctor arriving for your check-up and refusing to acknowledge that you have a body. He did, however, float the concept of “NATO 3.0,” which sounds like a software update nobody asked for and nobody quite knows how to install. The vague implication is that Europeans will henceforth be expected to handle their own security affairs while Washington redirects its attention toward Asia, the Middle East, and whatever hemisphere is currently most profitable. Think of it as a franchise arrangement where the parent company is quietly closing its local office while insisting the brand relationship remains strong.
