{"id":20697,"date":"2026-03-02T13:19:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T13:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=20697"},"modified":"2026-03-02T13:19:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T13:19:48","slug":"marco-rubios-munich-speech-signals-a-reckoning-for-the-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=20697","title":{"rendered":"Marco Rubio\u2019s Munich Speech Signals a Reckoning for the UN"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 4<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(DAILY SIGNAL) \u2013 Much has\u00a0been said\u00a0about Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s landmark\u00a0speech at the Munich Security Conference\u00a0last week.\n<\/p>\n

It was a confident and unapologetic defense of the economic, defense, and political ties that underpin the\u00a0American-European transatlantic partnership. It was also, crucially, a defense of Western Civilization itself forged through \u201ccenturies of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Yet less has been written on the implications of his address for the United States\u2019\u00a0engagement with multilateral organizations and international institutions\u00a0that will shape the world for years to come.\n<\/p>\n

When I first wrote on this issue last year, following President Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration, the\u00a0foreign policy priorities for his second term were only beginning to take shape.\n<\/p>\n

For example, the President announced the U.S.\u2019s withdrawal from certain United Nations institutions and agencies, including the\u00a0Human Rights Council\u00a0and the\u00a0World Health Organization;\u00a0reform of development assistance and USAID;\u00a0reinstatement of the pro-life Mexico City Policy; and rejoining the\u00a0Geneva Consensus Declaration Coalition.\n<\/p>\n

In the last few months, we have witnessed renewed impetus through executive orders\u00a0withdrawing from additional international organizations, conventions, and treaties, and the\u00a0formalization of new rules\u00a0prohibiting the funding of\u00a0abortion,\u00a0gender ideology, discriminatory\u00a0equity ideology, and unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in foreign assistance.\n<\/p>\n

Such policies not only\u00a0protect American taxpayers\u00a0from subsidizing harmful practices but also preserve the long-standing international consensus that each nation has the sovereign\u00a0right to implement programs and activities consistent with their laws and policies.\n<\/p>\n

None of these actions should be surprising. The world is witnessing a generational U.S. realignment in its bilateral, multilateral, and foreign assistance engagements to ensure they are consistent with core national interests rather than the priorities of unaccountable, unelected international technocrats.\n<\/p>\n

In this regard, Rubio acknowledged before his European counterparts the folly of nations \u201cincreasingly outsourc[ing] our sovereignty to international institutions.\u201d He specifically referenced neo-liberal policies in energy, migration, and trade, which have contributed to\u00a0inflationary crises,\u00a0affected social cohesion and national identities, and\u00a0hollowed out the West\u2019s industrial base.\n<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Rubio extended both a reassuring invitation and a bold challenge to those assembled:\n<\/p>\n

We can no longer place the so-called global order above the vital interests of our people and our nations.\u00a0We do not need to abandon the system of international cooperation we authored, and we don\u2019t need to dismantle the global institutions of the old order that together we built.\u00a0But these must be reformed.\u00a0These must be rebuilt.<\/p>\n

Nowhere should this charge be taken more seriously than at the UN. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently lamented that the\u00a0UN was on the verge of \u201cimminent financial collapse\u201d as early as this summer\u00a0if member states\u2013particularly the United States\u2013did not pay their dues.<\/p>\n

However, the UN crisis has been simmering for years and\u00a0cannot be attributed solely to the U.S.\u2019 arrears.\n<\/p>\n

While there has always been a\u00a0tension between idealists and realists among practitioners of international law, Rubio cut through the debate by asserting that proponents of multilateral institutions often pay lip service to a \u201crules-based\u201d international order or to international law but disregard them in practice too.\n<\/p>\n

For example, the organization has been plagued by allegations of\u00a0fraud, mismanagement, and abuse, critiqued for\u00a0prioritizing ideological colonization\u00a0over\u00a0universally agreed human rights and fundamental freedoms,\u00a0and for disregarding the legitimate\u00a0sovereign rights of UN member states.\n<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0League of Nations failed to stop crises in Manchuria, Ethiopia, and Central and Eastern Europe, Rubio likened the situations in Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran as contemporary failures: \u201cThe [UN] still has tremendous potential to be a tool for good in the world.\u00a0But we cannot ignore that today, on the most pressing matters before us, it has no answers and has played virtually no role.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s still too early to tell how successful the process will be in addressing concerns, the\u00a0UN General Assembly adopted Resolution A\/RES\/79\/318\u00a0last summer on the\u00a0UN80 Reform initiative\u00a0to identify efficiencies, review how mandates are implemented, and examine potential structural changes and program realignment within the UN system.\n<\/p>\n

Responding with a gesture of goodwill, Ambassador Mike Waltz, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, announced that the\u00a0United States planned to make initial UN payments and support efforts to ensure it is a more fit-for-purpose and focused organization: \u201cWe\u2019re going to pay those dues, and we\u2019re going to continue to demand reforms. We\u2019re off to a good start.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

However important these reforms may be, the barometer of success for multilateral institutions cannot be measured solely in terms of improved economic output, technical proficiency, or military prowess. Ultimately, such institutions do not exist for their own sake but to serve the human person and the common good.\n<\/p>\n

As Rubio\u2019s speech echoes the\u00a0shared moral, ethical, and religious heritage that undergirds the West, it is only from this posture that such a reinvigorated alliance can, in turn, \u201cboldly race[s] into the future\u201d to encounter other civilizations and seek to resolve humanity\u2019s most pressing challenges.\n<\/p>\n

Share your prayers for the State Department & UN below.<\/h4>\n

This article was originally published in The Daily Signal<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 4 minutes (DAILY SIGNAL) \u2013 Much has\u00a0been said\u00a0about Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s landmark\u00a0speech at the Munich Security Conference\u00a0last week. It was a confident and unapologetic defense of the economic, defense, and political ties that underpin the\u00a0American-European transatlantic partnership. It was also, crucially, a defense of Western Civilization itself forged through \u201ccenturies of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[6795,6797,6348,6796,3264,318],"class_list":{"0":"post-20697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-prayer","8":"tag-marco","9":"tag-munich","10":"tag-reckoning","11":"tag-rubios","12":"tag-signals","13":"tag-speech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}