A speech by Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference has sparked criticism from activists and commentators across Africa, Europe and Asia, after remarks that referenced centuries of Western expansion and called for renewed alignment between the United States and Europe. In his address, Rubio said Washington and its allies were returning to a path “we have walked together before,” adding that for five centuries before the end of World War II, “the West had been expanding … to cross oceans, settle new continents, [and] build vast empires extending out across the globe.”