Welcome to the second pop-up edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report at the 2026 Munich Security Conference. It’s been an action-packed day dominated by conversations about whether the United States and Europe can hug it out and save their historic alliance.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offers Europe a softer touch (but stays on message), NATO chief Mark Rutte denies that there’s a disconnect with the U.S. on the Russia-Ukraine war, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham makes the case for regime change in Iran.

Welcome to the second pop-up edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report at the 2026 Munich Security Conference. It’s been an action-packed day dominated by conversations about whether the United States and Europe can hug it out and save their historic alliance.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offers Europe a softer touch (but stays on message), NATO chief Mark Rutte denies that there’s a disconnect with the U.S. on the Russia-Ukraine war, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham makes the case for regime change in Iran.

Old Wine, New Bottle?

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio marked Valentine’s Day by trying to kiss and make up with Europe, exactly a year (almost to the minute) after U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance left many across the continent questioning their relationship with Washington.

The venue for both speeches was the same—the main stage at the Munich Security Conference in the Bayerischer Hof Hotel—but the response from the room couldn’t have been more different.

Where Vance gobsmacked the audience in 2025 with a lecture about Europe’s retreat from “shared values,” Rubio spent much of his speech appealing to the United States’ and Europe’s shared history, culture, and heritage (including three mentions of Christianity) and telling Europeans that Washington wants to work together with them to “renew the greatest civilization in human history.”

At the first-ever Munich Security Conference in 1963, held against the backdrop of the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis, the United States and Europe “were unified not just by what we were fighting against; we were unified by what we were fighting for,” Rubio said. “And together, Europe and America prevailed and a continent was rebuilt.”

It was a message Europe really wanted to hear after spending two days in Munich (and hundreds more before) fretting about the trans-Atlantic alliance. “In a time of headlines heralding the end of the trans-Atlantic era, let it be known and clear to all that this is neither our goal nor our wish—because for us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe,” Rubio added, in one of the biggest applause lines of his speech.

Many, including conference chairman Wolfgang Ischinger,........

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