McCain urges the West to 'persevere' at Munich Security Conference

(Image credit: THOMAS KIENZLE/AFP/Getty Images)

published 17 February 2017

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) championed the importance of the West and warned against growing threats to its survival while speaking Friday at the Munich Security Conference. Looking back to the conference's founding more than 50 years ago, McCain warned the same threats that rocked the West's fate then were re-emerging, including the "hardening resentment ... toward immigrants," the "unwillingness to separate truth from lies," and the "turn away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism."

"The next panel asks us to consider whether the West will survive," McCain said. "In recent years, this question would invite accusations of hyperbole and alarmism. Not this year. If ever there were a time to treat this question with a deadly seriousness, it is now."

Alluding to comments from President Trump, McCain urged Europe to realize not all American leaders are interested in "laying down the mantle of global leadership." "I refuse to accept that our values are morally equivalent to those of our adversaries. I am a proud, unapologetic believer in the West, and I believe we must always, always stand up for it ," McCain said, urging everyone to "be vigilant" and "perservere." "For if we do not, who will?"