Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Europe about “managed decline” while working to prevent a similar decline in the United States. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of War.By Antonio GraceffoFrom migrant-linked riots to low wages, high taxes, weak militaries and dependence on Russian gas, Europe is showing the decline Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned about.“We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” Rubio told the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14. He traced that decline to deindustrialization, sovereignty “outsourced” to international institutions, energy policies imposed “to appease a climate cult,” and “an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies.”Riots have spread across Europe since mid-October. In France, police arrested 448 people and 53 officers were injured during the Nov. 5 general strike, according to the French Interior Ministry.In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Oct. 20 that police had stopped and arrested 330 people after the Milan riots, half of foreign origin, including people born abroad and people born in Italy to foreign families. She said nearly 200 officers were injured and the youngest person identified was 11.In Germany, Hessian Interior Minister Roman Poseck said the group behind the Oct. 31 Frankfurt riots, which injured about 100 officers, “was predominantly of migrant background.”President Donald Trump tied the unrest to migration. “Europe has to CLOSE THEIR BORDERS, and get out the people who hate their countries,” he wrote on Truth Social on Oct. 19. He called France “a once-great nation that is being conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants” and warned, “if they don’t soon find their way, we will have no choice but to leave.”After Europe’s notoriously high taxes and social insurance contributions, a single worker earning the average wage in 2025 took home €24,471 ($27,442) in Italy, €25,263 ($28,330) in Spain and €19,709 ($22,102) in Portugal. A full-time worker earning California’s $20 minimum wage for fast-food chains would take home about $34,400 a year after taxes, more than a single worker earning the average wage in any of those three countries.At the G7 meeting in Paris on Nov. 10, Rubio asked European partners to help defend shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. “I raised it. I didn’t get a response,” he told reporters.If the United States pulled out, Europe would have to defend itself. In a poll of more than 31,000 people across NATO countries, just 25% of Italians, 27% of Germans and 30% of Dutch respondents said they would fight for their country. The poll was conducted in September and October 2025 for Latvia’s Riga Stradiņš University, the FPRI reported.Without the United States, Europe would need about 300,000 more soldiers, at least 1,400 new tanks and about €250 billion ($280 billion) a year in additional defense spending to deter Russia, the Kiel Institute estimated. A June 2026 IISS study found that Europe’s long-range precision munitions are “measured in the hundreds rather than the thousands” and that European navies would “struggle to maintain distributed operations across multiple theatres” without U.S. logistics.France has had one aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, since the Foch retired in 2000. The Charles de Gaulle begins its final major refit in 2027 and will be unavailable for much of 2028. During that time, Britain’s two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers will be Europe’s only ships able to deploy a substantial fixed-wing air group, Navy Lookout reported. Britain keeps one carrier ready while the other undergoes maintenance, and shortages of escorts, aircraft and personnel limit both.Europe still depends on gas from Russia, the very country it is preparing to deter. Germany shut down its last three nuclear reactors on April 15, 2023, including RWE’s Emsland plant. Three years later, Russian gas still covers about 12% of EU gas demand. Russian LNG imports rose 11% year on year from January to May 2026, according to ACER, the EU’s energy regulator. The EU’s full ban on Russian pipeline gas and LNG takes effect in November 2027.On Oct. 7, Rubio returned to the theme at the Pnyx, the hill where ancient Athenians held their democratic assemblies. He warned that the course the West takes “will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline.” He added, “We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago.”In Munich, Rubio explained why Washington cares whether Europe recovers. “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength,” he said. “And this is why we do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker.”The post Rubio Warned Europe About “Managed Decline.” Now Migrant-Linked Riots Are Sweeping the Continent appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.