Marco Rubio

We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength.

This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame.

We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.

Mass migration is not, was not, isn't some fringe concern of little consequence.

It was and continues to be a crisis, which is transforming and destabilizing societies all across the West.

The fundamental question we must answer at the outset

is what exactly are we defending?

Because armies do not fight for abstractions.

Armies fight for a people.

Armies fight for a nation.

Armies fight for a way of life.

And that is what we are defending, a great civilization that has every reason to be proud of its history.

The euphoria of this triumph.

led us to a dangerous delusion that we had entered, quote, the end of history, that every nation would now be a liberal democracy, that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone

would now replace nationhood.

We are part of one civilization, Western civilization.

We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together.

We are connected spiritually, and we are connected culturally.

We want Europe.

The fundamental question we must answer at the outset