Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Keeping the West’s flame burning

theblaze.com · 6h · first reportShare

At the outset of Marco Rubio’s tenure as secretary of state, his department introduced a new paradigm for U.S.-European relations: civilizational alliance. Rubio and his aides have persistently sought to remind Europe that our relationship is based not merely on trade deals and defense agreements, but ultimately on a shared Western anthropology and history. The real objection is not so much to any national interest but to the assertion of American national interest. Rubio’s July 4 message declared: [America’s] seeds were planted by the philosophers of Athens, the imperial majesty of Rome, the monks and kings of medieval Christendom — centuries of European exploration, science, faith, and restless ambition finally unleashed from every constraint on the boundless American frontier. America was the destiny of an entire civilization. These overtures, though sometimes welcomed by European citizens bearing the brunt of civilizational decline, have been met in conventional diplomatic circles