The World and Everything in It: February 17, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

A nuclear arms treaty has come to an end; we’ll talk with an expert about what’s next.

Also today, the right to repair debate, down on the farm.

MCDONALD: I have a John Deere baler, all the places I’ve brought them to have been like, “We can’t repair this.”

NICK EICHER, HOST: Later: a young pilot confronts the risks of aviation after the deadly UPS crash.

KLAP: I hope it won't happen again, but there's always a chance. 

And WORLD Opinions editor Albert Mohler on Marco Rubio’s civilizational vision.

RUBIO: We are part of … Western civilization, … forged by centuries of shared history ...

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, February 17th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran nuclear talks » Officials from the United States and Iran are holding a second round of nuclear talks today in Geneva, with Oman mediating.

That comes as President Trump continues to employ so-called ‘gunboat diplomacy’ ordering another aircraft carrier to the Middle East. His message to Tehran is clear: Strike a deal to curb your nuclear program, or else.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters:

RUBIO:  Our negotiators are on their way there. Now. They'll have meetings, we'll see what happens. We're hopeful there's a deal. The president always prefers peaceful outcomes and negotiated outcomes to things.

Iranian state TV reports that Iran on Monday launched its second naval drill in recent weeks.

Iran's top diplomat met with the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Geneva on Monday. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sat down with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi ahead of today’s talks.

Ukraine latest » And the U.S.-Iran meeting is not the only negotiation happening in Geneva today.

The U.S. is also set to broker peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

There again, Secretary Rubio said President Trump wants to see a peaceful solution adding that the US is doing all it can.

RUBIO: We're the only nation on earth that apparently can get both sides to the table to talk. I'm not here to insult anybody, but the United Nations hasn't been able to do it. There's no other country in Europe that's been able to do it.

But no one seems particularly optimistic about a breakthrough today with both sides sticking to their non-negotiable demands on key issues.

Russia, meantime, is reportedly preparing new, massive strikes to target the Ukrainian energy sector.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking Ukrainian]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says intelligence has discovered the plans. He adds that Ukraine's air defenses must be prepared for what he called Russia's evil plans.

Navalny » Rubio also said Monday that the US government has no reason to doubt a new report about the death of Russia opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Five European countries say he was poisoned with a rare toxin from poison dart frogs. The U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands say European lab tests confirmed the toxin epibatidine was found in his body.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper:

COOPER:  Only the Russian government had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to use that toxin against Alexi Navalny in prison.

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, reacted to those findings.

NAVALNAYA:  Is scientific proof that my husband Alex Navalny was poisoned.

The Russian opposition leader, and prominent critic of Vladimir Putin died in a Russian Arctic penal colony in 2024.

Moscow claims he died of natural causes.

Trump on Board of Peace » Gaza's transitional government, President Trump's Board of Peace will convene Thursday in Washington.

Aboard Air Force One Monday, the president told reporters the meeting could push the United Nations to work harder towards resolving disputes.

TRUMP:  We're gonna have all world leaders. They're putting up tremendous amounts of money, and I think it's gonna go far beyond Gaza. I think it'll be peace all over the world, and we're working in conjunction with the United Nations.

Some world leaders declined to join the board, saying they believed it would serve to undermine the United Nations.

Trump says the board is set to unveil 5 billion dollars in funding to work towards reconstruction and security in the Gaza strip.

The United Nations and other world bodies estimate that it'll cost 70 billion dollars to rebuild Gaza.

U.S. forces in Nigeria » U.S. troops are deploying to Nigeria to help in the fight against Islamic militants. WORLD’s Harrison Watters explains.

HARRISON WATTERS: The Pentagon is sending about 200 troops to the West African nation. Roughly 100 of them have already arrived along with equipment.

This comes after the Nigerian government asked for help with training, technical support, and intelligence-sharing. The military there is battling Islamic terror groups like Boko Haram, ISIS, and other armed factions.

Those groups have targeted Christians in the country, killing thousands last year.

Though, Muslim residents are not immune to the attacks either.

President Trump has criticized Nigeria for, in his view, not doing enough to protect Christians in particular.

The U.S. troop deployment follows U.S. airstrikes in December against ISIS-affiliated militants in northwestern Nigeria.

For WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters.

Robert Duvall » Actor Robert Duvall has died.

He was known for roles in films such as “To Kill a Mockingbird, “Open Range,” and “Apocalypse Now.”

And he received acclaim for his portrayal of a mafia confidant in the first two “Godfather” movies:

CLIP (Godfather):  Nobody has ever gunned down a New York police captain. Never. It would be disastrous. All the five families would come after you. Sonny, the Corleone family would be outcast. Even the old man's political protection would run for cover.

He won the Oscar for best actor for portraying an over-the-hill country music singer in the 1983 film “Tender Mercies.”

He also won four Golden Globe awards, including one for playing the philosophical cattle-drive boss in the 1989 miniseries “Lonesome Dove”.

Robert Duvall was 95 years old.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Concerns over a new nuclear arms race between Russia and the U.S. Plus, the Trump administration works to lower prescription drug costs.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 17th of February.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It: The end of a nuclear treaty.

The so-called START agreement theoretically limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals has expired and no new agreement is yet in place.

REICHARD: At the Munich Security Conference in Germany over the weekend, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed hard for a new treaty.

SÁNCHEZ: As a non-nuclear country that has witnessed nuclear bombs accidentally being dropped on its territory back in 1966, I beg you, prevent the launch of a new arms race while it is possible. Humanity will be forever grateful if you do and it will heavily judge you if you don't.

All this comes as President Trump has suggested the U.S. could resume nuclear testing as a deterrent to Russia, which hadn’t lived up to its end of the START treaty, as well as China.

Joining us now is Andrea Stricker. She is the deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Good morning, Andrea.

ANDREA STRICKER: Good morning, thank you for having me.

REICHARD: Tell us briefly first about the START Treaty and what it accomplished.

STRICKER: The New START Treaty was the latest in a successive list of U.S., Russia and previously, USSR, nuclear treaties that limited the deployed nuclear arsenals of each side. So the U.S. and Russia were each allowed to have 1550 nuclear warheads deployed on their intercontinental ballistic missiles, their submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. And then it also limited the missiles and the bombers that they were allowed to have deployed. So it really gave predictability and allowed both sides to actually inspect whether the other was complying with the limits they were allowed to visit about 18 times per year. And so it is a loss, as far as having insight into what both sides would be doing.

REICHARD: Well, you say it's a loss. What else does this expiration of the treaty mean for the two countries?

STRICKER: I think it really gives the U.S. in particular, a chance to re-examine its nuclear posture and assess whether it is doing the job at deterring both Russia and China in this new era of trilateral great power competition. The U.S. was actually complying with the treaty, even though Russia had suspended the mutual inspections provisions back during the 2020 COVID pandemic. So the U.S. has been flying blind for some time, and then Russia, we've seen, has been adding to its so-called non-strategic nuclear arsenal. So that's theater nuclear weapons that it doesn't have deployed, but would be more useful in a battle or to defend the Russian homeland. So it has around 1000 to 2000 of those, whereas the U.S. has about 200 on its side. Also, Russia has been doing a lot with novel delivery systems. So it's been thinking about putting a nuclear anti-satellite weapons in space, it's been doing more underwater in the sea, as well as other delivery systems that are not constrained by the Treaty and that really give the U.S. disadvantage.

REICHARD: What do we know about both country’s capabilities right now?

STRICKER: The United States has a total military arsenal of about 3700 nuclear weapons. There are some good, open source estimates on that, whereas Russia has about 4300 nuclear weapons. And so I think even though the limits are expiring, both sides are not really expected to start arms racing as far as building additional nuclear weapons, I think both consider that they have enough, and they're more focused on modernizing their nuclear weapons for the new century and for really giving more impetus to the delivery systems. So I think in the short term, we are not going to see the building of new nuclear weapons

REICHARD: Now, over the weekend was the Munich Security Conference in Germany. Some European leaders there expressed concern about the expiration of the START treaty. How do you think a new arms race might affect them?

STRICKER: I think it really does push Europe to start thinking about a European nuclear deterrent. We've seen France and Germany talking about how they could collaborate. We've seen the U.K. also getting involved in these discussions. But it causes other European countries that are really on the borders with Russia, like Poland, to start talking about whether they need to proliferate nuclear weapons. And I think this also dovetails with the degrading U.S.-NATO relationship. So if the US continues to signal that it is not really interested in being part of the NATO alliance, and continues to push on issues like Greenland, that gives pause to European leaders and makes them question whether they need to go for their own arsenals as well.

REICHARD: You know, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not even mention the START treaty at all at that meeting. What do you make of that?

STRICKER: I think Secretary Rubio is looking to the next several decades. I think he considers New START to be behind us, and that it was unfairly constraining the United States. He did reiterate, and I believe other U.S. officials have reiterated, that the U.S. does believe in its extended nuclear deterrent over Europe. So I think some good diplomacy, some good legwork to try to patch up the issues that we've had with Europe over the past several months would be positive and could go a long way toward diminishing their drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

REICHARD: All right, wrapping up here, we know that nuclear power is not a duopoly. Are there any other nations that we should be paying attention to on this nuclear front?

STRICKER: Certainly we'll be looking at Iran and whether the U.S. intends to conduct another strike on the regime, potentially to stabilize or topple it. That would cause some insecurity as far as loose nuclear material. Concern about safeguarding Iran's nuclear facilities in the event of regime collapse. I'd also be looking at other Asian countries, like South Korea acquiring its own nuclear deterrence, Eastern European countries and then, of course, other Middle East states, like Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been itching to start proliferating nuclear weapons if Iran does.

REICHARD: Andrea Stricker is the deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Andrea, thank you so much.

STRICKER: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the battle over prescription drug prices.

The Trump administration is testing a strategy to lower prescription drug costs by linking U.S. prices to what other countries pay. A new website called TrumpRx-dot-gov is the consumer-facing piece of that effort—but experts disagree on the scale of the impact.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: At the launch of TrumpRx-dot-gov, President Donald Trump highlighted what he called a dramatic shift in prescription drug pricing.

DONALD TRUMP: Novo Nordisk will be slashing the price, as an example, of Ozempic, from more than $1,000 to $199. And the price of Wegovy from more than $1,300 to $199. Nobody can even believe it. A 578% difference.

TrumpRx is the administration’s latest step in a broader effort to reduce prescription drug prices in the U.S. The website lists discounted cash prices for certain medications that manufacturers have agreed to offer. It does not dispense drugs and does not process insurance claims. Instead, patients pay out of pocket at participating pharmacies and use coupons.

The administration says those discounts are tied to what they call a “Most Favored Nation” policy. Meaning, an effort to link U.S. drug prices to what other wealthy countries pay. The theory is that Americans should not pay more for the same medication than patients in Europe or Canada. Officials say TrumpRx makes those government-negotiated prices visible to consumers.

Hannah Anderson with the America First Policy Institute says the goal is to benefit Americans while pressuring global markets.

ANDERSON: They were thinking, how do we both, like, give a way for people to shop around for the lowest cost of drugs, while we're also working with other countries to make sure that no one in America is paying a higher cost for these drugs than other countries.

Here’s how Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz described it.

OZ: It's free. You get to look at all the prices and you should not be buying drugs anymore going forward without at least checking to see if those medications are available at these discounted prices on TrumpRX.gov.

Right now, consumers pay out of pocket for the drugs. You can’t use insurance on the site, but Anderson says even the insured may benefit.

ANDERSON: More and more Americans look at their insurance benefit and say, ‘You know what, it might actually be cheaper for me over the course of the year to pay cash for this drug.’

While she says the site is most likely to benefit people without insurance or who need drugs that insurance doesn’t cover, it might also be a good option for those with high-deductible insurance. But insurance payments count toward an annual deductible and out-of-pocket maximum. Cash purchases usually do not. That means what looks cheaper in the moment may not be cheaper over the course of the year.

And sometimes, more options create confusion.

PESTAINA: There's concerns that people don't understand this.

Kaye Pestaina is the director of the patient and consumer protection program at KFF.

PESTAINA: Sometimes you look at something on on this site or other direct to consumer sites, it looks really cheap, but if you do the math, you might actually be paying less using your insurance.

TrumpRx doesn’t assemble every single possible discount or consider the prices of generic versus brand-name drugs… That means consumers will still need to shop—especially since the 43 drugs on TrumpRx are mostly brand-name. That’s a small fraction of the thousands of prescriptions on the market.

PESTAINA: On the most part, generics will work for most patients, but there are some instances where a provider will say the patient needs the brand only.

But having to shop isn’t new. Patients have been able to buy drugs using platforms like GoodRx for years, sometimes finding big discounts.

Right now, about 8 percent of Americans are uninsured: that’s about 30 million people who may benefit most from a cash-only option like TrumpRx, especially if more medications are added.

The administration argues the broader goal isn’t simply a discount website, but a shift in how global drug prices are set. They say TrumpRx is an outpouring of the Most Favored Nation strategy.

In December, the UK agreed to pay more for certain medications as part of trade negotiations—an example supporters point to as evidence of shifting price pressure.

But Brookings Institution economic fellow Marta Wosinska says comparing U.S. prices to Europe’s nationalized systems is complicated—and she questions whether “fairness” is the right benchmark.

WOSINSKA: Is that the problem that we want to solve, that we want to make it fair? Is that really the policy objective, or is it that we want to have lower drug prices? Because when you ask that question, you might end up with very, very different answers.

Instead, Wosinska thinks structural changes to the TrumpRx system would be a better option.

WOSINSKA: Figuring out a way to let these drugs be counted towards the deductible, could actually be game changing for patients in high deductible health plans.

She doubts Congress will mandate Medicare Advantage participation, but:

WOSINSKA: you could imagine the administration using all sorts of levers that they have to potentially get the insurers to come to the table and work with that.

For now, supporters and skeptics alike agree that more competition in prescription pricing could benefit consumers. The larger question is whether TrumpRx remains a parallel, cash-only tool—or becomes part of a broader restructuring of how Americans pay for medicine.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: For farmers, timing is everything—and waiting days for a dealership repair on a critical piece of equipment can mean losing a crop.

Now federal agencies say farmers and independent mechanics ought to be free to fix their own equipment.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week announced the “Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework.” It represents a partial deregulation of agriculture. The Environmental Protection Agency went along, too, saying the “right to repair” would not violate environmental laws.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Right-to-repair may sound like it should be obvious. But it’s part of a long-running turf war between equipment manufacturers and farmers and mechanics who want free-market services.

WORLD’s Todd Vician has our story.

SOUND: [Excavator machine starting]

TODD VICIAN: Luke McDonald tends 75 acres southeast of San Antonio and leases another 200 acres nearby. He and his family, and a growing number of hands, plant and harvest crops, and raise chickens, cows, pigs, ducks, and even emus. Every minute of the day matters, especially during harvest season.

LUKE MCDONALD: We do hay and sorghum, and I have a window I got to cut it. And if I wait, then the product can go bad. The fields can get too muddy to operate in. You can miss your windows …

And it gets worse if equipment breaks down.

MCDONALD: We can go in total emergency mode, where everything is refocused on getting one piece of equipment up.

Over the years, tractors and farm implements have gotten bigger, more complicated, and harder to keep running. Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, and a third-generation cattle farmer, explains why the right-to-repair fight is such fertile ground now.

GARY WERTISH: We just want access if something goes wrong. The farmer buys that equipment, spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, then he’s held captive.

Ninety-two percent of farmers surveyed in a 2022 poll said they believe they could save money if they had better access to independent repair technicians or could make all repairs themselves. More than three-quarters said they buy and fix or upgrade older equipment to avoid the restrictions from manufacturers protecting their intellectual property and profits.

MCDONALD: If you have a piece of equipment go down in the field and you're reliant on a mobile mechanic to come to you, you may not have them show up for a day, two days, it may be a week, you know, it just depends on where you land in the line.”

But farm-equipment manufacturers have long maintained the Clean Air Act prohibits them from selling tools and giving access to diagnostics to farmers or independent repair technicians. They say the government could hold manufacturers responsible if a customer making repairs tampers with parts that control emissions.

Ross Pifer directs the Center for Agricultural and Shale Law at Penn State Dickinson Law, and also served as a U.S.D.A. attorney.

ROSS PIFER: This letter from EPA makes it abundantly clear that Deere isn’t going to be liable in that situation.

The EPA’s rebuke of John Deere this month wasn’t the first time the environmental agency weighed in. It said three years ago that the Clean Air Act doesn’t restrict who can make repairs. The agency also said at the same time that Congress was telling manufacturers to stop steering work away from independent technicians.

PIFER: I don’t think the recent EPA action really plowed any new ground. I think the fact that the EPA took this action indicates that there is at least some desire to keep this issue kind of on the front burner.

John Deere officials said they will soon make tools available to temporarily override emissions systems when repairing equipment. Manufacturers favor voluntary actions instead of legislation or lawsuits. They negotiated an agreement with the American Farm Bureau Federation in 2023. That agreement gives farmers access to error codes, specialty tools, and information to make repairs without going through dealerships.

GARY WERTISH: It really hasn't changed anything.

The nonbinding agreement didn’t stave off lawsuits. One ongoing trial involves the Federal Trade Commission and alleges John Deere’s actions inflate farmers’ repair costs, degrade their ability to make timely repairs, and violate federal and state antitrust laws.

MCDONALD: I have a John Deere baler, and the hydraulics you can only get from John Deere and the seal kits are really weird, and so you're hammered into a position of, all the places I’ve brought them to have been like, ‘We can’t repair this.”

Wertish passed his 500-acre farm to his son, and he hopes the renewed federal interest in farmers’ right to repair will produce lasting relief.

WERTISH: Sometimes you have to go as maybe a couple hours to even get to a dealership. So having more opportunities there would be a help for rural America.

In Texas, McDonald reinstalls a tread that came off a very used excavator while working on fencing at the farm he also hopes to pass to his son. Two hours later, he calculates how far he’s off his goal for the day and the project.

MCDONALD: Our profit margins are not very good, and anything that happens, you can't prepare for it. You hope you can. You do what you can prepare for. But those hit the bottom line hard.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Todd Vician, near Seguin, Texas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Prime ministers in Britain drift in and out like the London fog.

But at Number 10 Downing Street, there’s one resident who’s endured 15 years and six governments.

He’s known as Larry the Cat, chief mouser to the cabinet office.

Photojournalist Justin Ng says Larry’s got impeccable timing.

NG: So if there’s a foreign leader that’s about to visit, then we know he’ll just come out the exact moment that meet and greet is about to happen.

At age 19 Larry is quite the elder statesman, so he’s gotten used to global big shots passing through. He’s met Obama, Trump, Biden, Zelenskyy, and he doesn’t seem impressed.

NG: He’s very good at what he does, lounging around and basically showing people that he’s very nonchalant.

They say dogs have owners, but cats have staff. And after six prime ministers, it’s seems clear who works for whom.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 17th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the risks of commercial aviation.

Last November a UPS cargo plane crashed on takeoff in Louisville. All three crew members and eleven people on the ground died in the wreckage. The crash forced many in aviation to confront a familiar truth, that risk is part of the job.

REICHARD: Some are now asking themselves if or when they will return to flight. WORLD associate correspondent Clint Armani has the story.

CLINT ARMANI: On the evening of November 4th, Charlie Klap was studying in his fraternity house. Suddenly, emergency notifications began blowing up his phone.

KLAP: I don’t think a lot of people knew what was happening because a lot of people were still going to and from class.

But then his fraternity brothers noticed something strange in the air. Charlie opened his window and saw a dark plume of smoke rising from the Muhammad Ali International Airport.

Friends working near the airport started texting him. They saw the plane.

AUDIO: [Sound of explosion]

KLAP: Somebody sent a video of the rear end of the plane going down the runway, and from that I could tell it was a MD-11.

Charlie knows airplanes. He’s a private pilot currently working on his instrument rating at nearby Bowman Field. His dad and brother are pilots too.

KLAP: My dad used to fly the MD-11.

Charlie and his younger brother, Julian, are members of Flight Club 502, a non-profit youth aviation organization. Julian is a high school junior and volunteers at the club. He has several hours of flight training towards his private pilots license. Charlie says Julian was at the club when the MD-11 crashed.

KLAP: He was out in the parking lot and he could see pieces of destroyed packages scattered under the line of smoke. The wind was carrying it across Louisville.

UPS Flight 2976 was a Boeing MD-11 aircraft, loaded for a long flight to Honolulu during peak cargo season. According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report, a witness in the control tower described the takeoff roll as normal. The climbout was not. Very shortly after lift off, the left engine and the pylon that attached it to the wing ripped away from the aircraft—igniting multiple fires. The plane barely cleared the airport perimeter fence at the end of Runway 17 Right.

NEWSCASTERS: With its wing on fire, the jet struggles to climb. The report says the MD-11 plane only made it about 30 feet off the ground before crashing into an industrial neighborhood.

KLAP: It was almost ominous. The sun was going down but when you look out over campus, there’s a dark cloud and it was eerie.

With oily smoke still in the air, Charlie called his dad but couldn’t reach him. His dad was in Europe in the middle of another trip. Then, he called his mom. When he told her that the plane was an MD-11, she was distraught. Charlie’s dad used to fly that very same route on the MD-11 many times. He tried his dad again…

KLAP: I didn’t hear from him for like two hours. My mom was calling me back and forth. Finally, my dad gets back. He didn’t even know it happened. He had no idea.

Crashes are especially difficult for families in aviation. Charlie’s mom asked if he still wanted to continue his flight training.

KLAP: It could have been, you know, her husband and however many years it could be one of her kids.

Charlie’s younger brother Julian decided to take a break. Returning to flight after a tragic accident is sobering for any aviator.

KLAP: Obviously for my dad it was rough because he knew the people personally. He had known them for years. He’d been flying that same trip to Honolulu.

Charlie said his dad is still processing it. Maybe he always will.

For now, Charlie cautiously continues toward his flying goals…

KLAP: I hope it won't happen again, but there’s always a chance.

Within four days of the crash, all MD-11 aircraft and its predecessor the DC-10 were grounded. Now, three months after the fatal accident, one company has decided to permanently retire their fleet of MD-11s. Others plan to fly again.

AUDIO: [Sound of MD-11 flying]

Those in and around aviation live with the ever-present potential of devastating danger. Careful planning and detailed decisions are of utmost importance. However when crashes like Flight 2976 do happen, pilots, their families, and those around aviation live with the reality that it could have been them or one of their friends. For some… it was.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Clint Armani in Louisville, Kentucky.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

At a gathering of western leaders in Munich, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke not just about strategy — but about civilization.

WORLD Opinions editor Albert Mohler says that shift matters.

ALBERT MOHLER » If you want to understand where American foreign policy stands right now, listen to what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Munich.

RUBIO: National security… is not merely a series of technical questions… 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.

That was Rubio at the Munich Security Conference — an annual gathering of NATO leaders, generals, foreign ministers, and heads of state.

He began with identity.

What exactly are we defending?

Then he challenged a central assumption of the post–Cold War era.

RUBIO: The end of history… that the rules-based global order would replace the national interest… that we would live in a world without borders.

Rubio called that vision a delusion. He said it ignored human nature and five thousand years of history — and that it cost the West dearly.

For decades, Western leaders spoke as if globalization were inevitable — borders softening, national interests fading into an international system built on trade and institutions.

In Munich, Rubio said plainly: that assumption was wrong.

He linked it to deindustrialization, fragile supply chains, and growing dependence on rivals.

Then he turned to migration.

RUBIO: In pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies… and the survival of our civilization itself.

That is not conventional diplomatic language.

But Rubio did not stop at policy. He moved to something deeper.

RUBIO: We are part of one civilization — Western civilization… bound together by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage…

That language is rarely heard from American secretaries of state.

He defined the alliance not merely as strategic — but civilizational.

And that is why the reaction was swift.

Critics pointed to Europe’s changing demographics and declining church affiliation, implying that Western civilization may already be a relic.

One New York Times report from Munich described halal grocery counters near cathedral spires and noted that nearly one in three residents in the city is not German — suggesting that the Europe Rubio described may no longer exist. The implication was clear: Western civilization is no longer a shared inheritance, but a fading memory.

Christians should see the deeper issue.

There is no morally neutral civilization. If Christianity recedes, it is not replaced by nothing. Every society rests on ultimate claims about authority, dignity, justice, and meaning. Those claims always reflect deeper commitments — whether acknowledged or not.

So the debate in Munich was not simply about NATO budgets or migration quotas.

It was about identity.

What are we defending?

Rubio’s answer was unmistakable: a people, a nation, a way of life — and a civilization he believes still binds Europe and America together.

For WORLD, I’m Albert Mohler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Hunter Baker joins us for Washington Wednesday, we’ll talk more about the significance of Secretary of State Rubio’s speech in Europe. And, WORLD Tour. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever.” —Proverbs 10:24-29

Go now in grace and peace.

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