The 62nd Munich Security Conference (MSC) was held from 13th to 15th February, where more than forty heads of state and government were in attendance. However, most of the leaders were from Europe and were fundamentally concerned about technological and geopolitical challenges to European security and the future of the transatlantic alliance (NATO) led by the US. The MSC was founded in 1963 by resistance fighters among German army officers who wanted to kill Adolf Hitler and prevent wars and conflicts within and outside Europe, and to establish world peace through open debates, discussions, and dialogues. The organisers of the MSC claim that it is a marketplace of ideas for “peace through dialogue,” and its objective is “to build trust and to contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts by sustaining a continuous, curated, and informal dialogue within the international security community.”
However, the MSC does not follow the idealism it professes. It is rather designed to pursue imperialist, colonial, and racialised capitalist agendas to maintain white supremacy over people and control resources around the world. The 62nd MSC and the content of speeches by various leaders from the US and Europe reveal the unashamed nakedness of a war-mongering white supremacist ideology that intends to celebrate, sustain, and promote the colonial past and the imperialist and capitalist present.
On 14 February, when people were busy celebrating their love in parks, restaurants, and city breaks during Valentine’s Day, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, addressed the MSC and appealed to revive the imperialist and colonial past to sustain the spirit of the so-called liberal order, aka the capitalist present and future. Rubio started his speech by branding communism as an evil ideology. “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police spies.” These words were written by Marx and Engels while writing the preamble to The Communist Manifesto, and they never thought that even after 179 years, their words would echo in the 2026 MSC.
During his speech, Rubio blamed migrants for the crumbling social and cultural cohesion in Europe and the US. The social and cultural cohesion collapsing in Europe and the US is not because of migrants but because of the praxis of racial capitalism, which continues to sustain itself by exploiting the working masses. As a denier of the climate crisis, Rubio blames movements for the protection of the environment as “a climate cult” that imposed energy policies impoverishing European and American people while leveraging the competitors of Eu rope and the US. Such an understanding lacks basic empirical evidence but works as a strategic design to outsource the failures of the ruling classes and their capitalist system, which failed to provide prosperity to the people of Europe and America.
Rubio’s speech did not offer any alternative but called for unity between the US and Europe based on the sacred inheritance of Western civilisation, shaped by Christianity. He also called for the “renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilisation’s past.” God, guns, and national glory define Rubio’s speech, which celebrates the colonial past of Europe and the imperialist present led by the US. Rubio forgets that slavery, colonial plunder, and imperialist displacement define Western civilisation, which stands on the ruins of the lives, liberties, and livelihoods of working people in Europe, the US, and across the world. The welfare state has lost its value due to capitalist consolidation; therefore, Rubio blamed massive investment in welfare states for the reduction in the defence budget for maintaining a security apparatus shaped by the Pentagon’s profit-driven military-industrial alliance in the name of national security. The welfare state and democracy are twin threats to war-mongering imperialists and capitalists. Because welfare states empower people, and democracy deepens citizenship rights.
Rubio’s speech also undermined the UN and highlighted its failures in the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts. These two conflicts are partly created and supported by the Yankee foreign policy of the US. He also called Palestinians barbarians. Such language is not new. Rubio learned this language from British colonialism, which branded indigenous communities as barbarians and criminals as they fought against British colonialism in India. He loathed the idea that colonialism was defeated through anti-colonial struggle and the rise of ‘godless communists.’
Rubio’s call for the revival of European colonialism under the leadership of American imperialism is a blueprint for domination. His words reveal the real intentions behind destroying Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Palestine and weaponising trade for the world to surrender before US imperialism. Rubio, in his speech, celebrated the bombing of Iran and the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro. These actions are part of Rubio and his breed’s way to “revitalise an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization” which was shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism.
It is within this context that the world needs a united front against the ruling elites of Europe and America, who wish to sustain capitalism by promoting colonial plunder and imperialist wars and conflicts at the cost of peace, people, and prosperity. It is time to create a global alliance against colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. Struggles against these forces are central to the survival of life on the planet. History is witness to the victory of all struggles led by working people. This time will be no different.
The writer teaches at the London Metropolitan University