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The article by Sevim Daǧdelen, published on February 18, 2026 in Overton Magazine was translated from German by us on our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

For a contrast, make sure to read “Munich, 2007: The Day the West Was Told No” – an analysis by Gerry Nolan, preceded by the speech and a summary from the Russian MFA, while the wider historical context can be found in How the Anglo-Saxons Promoted Fascism in the 20th Century and Revived It in the 21st – Dmitry Medvedev.

The US Secretary of State views 1945 as a defeat for the West and wants to revise the post-war order, including anti-colonial liberation. At the “security conference”, he received standing ovations, especially from German ministers.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had commissioned the development of “Operation Unthinkable” in May 1945. (Rea also: The unthinkable madness of the Anglo-Saxons. From 1945-49 the US and UK planned to bomb Russia into the Stone Age.) The British General Staff was instructed to devise a plan for an attack on the Soviet Union, which was to take place jointly with US forces and 100,000 soldiers of the German Wehrmacht on July 1, 1945. Due to the high risks, particularly the doubts about whether British soldiers would actually follow a corresponding attack order, the project, which was not published until 1998, was abandoned. However, the plan was in line with a quote falsely attributed to Winston Churchill: “We’ve slaughtered the wrong pig.”

Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference now follows in the tradition of “Operation Unthinkable”, but on a global scale. Rubio views 1945 as a year of defeat for the West, and he wants to reverse the anti-colonialist defeat of 1945 from his perspective. This is also the real reason why the US administration wants to push the United Nations aside.

Rubio’s Colonial Nostalgia

“For five centuries before the end of the Second World War, the West was expanding – its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers streamed from its shores to cross oceans, colonise new continents, and build vast empires that spanned the globe. But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, the West retreated,” Rubio’s historical lesson states. Then the decline set in, “accelerated by godless communist revolutions and anti-colonial uprisings.”

Therefore, 1945 is understood as a crisis of Western colonialism, in which the US sees itself as the leading power, but which also needs allies. Therefore, the US Secretary of State emphasised:

“We don’t want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.”

Perhaps it was this promise to be used to contribute to US strength that made the three Germans the first to stand up in the hall. It was all three parties of the government coalition – Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, and Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder — who could hardly contain their applause as they stood up.

Rubio’s speech was not just an empathy for 500 years of colonialism, mass murder, slavery, and exploitation to the point of death, but also a challenge to the powers that, from the US administration’s point of view, stand in the way of a recolonisation of the world in favour of a renewed US imperialism: Russia and, above all, China.

The German Foreign Minister Wadephul, true to his vassal loyalty, therefore joined the US battle line in Munich by declaring that he wanted to maintain good relations with all BRICS countries, except Russia and China.

Farewell to the UN

From the US perspective, the United Nations must be sidelined because Moscow and Beijing hold a veto in the UN Security Council, and a majority of the Global South regularly votes against the US’s recolonization policy of renewed imperialism in the General Assembly, as in the case of the genocide in Gaza and the blockade against Cuba. The UN “no longer plays a role”, says Rubio. At best, it should be reformed.

This is all about revising the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire in 1945. Russia, as the successor state of the Soviet Union, and China should no longer be considered victors, as they are the source of rebellion in the Global South. Rubio gets very specific about where US imperialism had to assert itself against the UN. A list of recent interventions follows. In a complete distortion of history, the American says:

“They couldn’t resolve the war in Gaza. Instead, it was American leadership that liberated the hostages from barbarians and brought about a fragile ceasefire.”

Not a word about Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, supported by the US administration and the German government. Not a word that the genocide is continuing.

Then Rubio lists Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela. Since the UN is unable to act, the Americans must do it instead. The US’s violations of international law are supposed to show the way to action. The Europeans are to be taken along. “It will give us back our place in the world”, Rubio’s Munich promise. However, this place must be fought for against all who dare to oppose the US.

War rhetoric for a new world war

Rubio’s speech is a war speech. The promise to want to wage a world war for the US, which will restore this superpower to its former place. The Europeans are promised to be taken along on this ride, because they are not dispensable for strengthening the US. The US’s starvation of Cuba is likely to be just a first foretaste of what will follow to fulfill the 500-year colonial common history of the West and to be able to renew the promise of domination. Western civilisation, which is to be helped to victory, is understood by Rubio as both an ethnic and a cultural and religious community. In this respect, the awareness of seeing 1945 as a defeat can certainly be understood as understandable.

US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State are facing an unthinkable operation on a global scale. The risk of a world war seems to be part of the calculation. Who will stop US imperialism on this path?

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Sevim Daǧdelen was a member of the German Bundestag from 2005 to 2025. The politician is the foreign policy spokesperson for the group “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht – Reason and Justice” (BSW) and was the chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The deputy was a member of the US Parliamentary Group, the German-Chinese and German-Indian Parliamentary Groups. Sevim Daǧdelen was a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly for many years, where deputies from the member countries of the military pact discuss security and defense policy issues.