U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the February 2026 Munich Security Conference, asserted a "Western Civilization" identity for the U.S. and Europe based on "Christian faith" and "heritage." This contrasts with a liberal understanding emphasizing Enlightenment values: universal human equality, openness, tolerance, and rule of law, rooted in 17th-century separation of religion and politics.
Europe's identity, shared with a Lockean United States, must embrace these ideals. A U.S. division exists between this view and a "pre-modern America" under Donald Trump, whose authoritarian domestic and unilateralist foreign policies, and "America First" shift, erode trust, questioning U.S. reliability for NATO. Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, per Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, exacerbate global inequalities and pose governance challenges. Dominated by U.S. and Chinese private "technocracies," AI development outpaces government regulation, with Europe lagging, creating risks from non-transparent values and state abuse.
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