Irregular: Munich Insecurity Conference
Europe’s funny Valentine
In this Irregular column, I would like to give a sense of the atmosphere and inner workings of the Munich Security Conference, which our CEO, Christian Habla, and I attended last week.
Clearly, much has been written about Munich, including by us, so I won’t go into enormous detail about what was said, or what made headlines. Rather, I want to talk about what the MSC really is, how it works, who’s who in the zoo, and what can usefully be gleaned from being there on the ground that cannot be understood from reading news reports or watching the speeches.
Februarfest
The MSC is an important event in the international calendar, alongside Davos, the UN General Assembly, and the more specialised summits held throughout the year.
Munich is, above all and unlike those other events, a barometer of transatlantic relations and a window into the European security agenda. It’s also a very good place for doing business. Beyond the official participation of senior politicians — over 50 heads of state attended — there are large delegations of parliamentarians and speakers from civil society and the corporate sector. Many large corporates, especially professional services firms, organise side events and private client dinners. Billionaires fly in on private jets to rub shoulders with world leaders. NGOs convene delegate gatherings outside the official confines of the conference. And astute media organisations, recognising the powerful pull of a drink (or two, or more) after long days of meetings and panel sessions, hire out bars.
All this makes the MSC as much a high-level networking event as a forum for learning about global affairs. In fact, many of the most interesting and frank conversations we had were on the sidelines rather than in plenary discussions or formal speeches.
Getting the most out of the MSC, whether as an official, journalist, or corporate participant, requires understanding the program, its logistics, the atmosphere, the interests of various participants, and how to add value. It means being in the right place at the right time. It requires strong preparation, openness to striking up conversations with as many people as possible, being opportunistic, limiting sleep, and having enough business cards to hand out. Often, it is the most spontaneous, unplanned conversation — struck up while waiting for coffee or a Negroni — that provides the most value and allows new relationships to be forged and old ones to be rekindled. Indeed, it is one of those conferences where the more you go, the more you get out of it. As Woody Allen said, “80% of life is just showing up” – even if this particular conference conflicts with Valentine’s Day, potentially compromising the other 20%.
Like Davos, the MSC convenes the “who’s who” of international politics, even if participation is not quite as broad, and it doesn’t occur in the same cloistered and freezing atmosphere of the Swiss Alps. Rather, it takes place in the centre of Munich, a city historically – and tragically – so linked to geopolitics and synonymous with the appeasement of the 1938 pact recognising Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland.
While taking place in an ‘ordinary’ European city, the event nevertheless feels very cut off from ordinary life. Security is tight, with police everywhere, motorcades stopping traffic, and helicopters above watching for potential incidents. A complex colour-coded badge system creates a hierarchy of access for delegates with various affiliations, from official participants to speakers to corporate sponsors, journalists, and those only able to access side events taking place outside the several hotels closed off in that part of the city. FOMO is very real.
International architecture
Most prominent panels take place in the main hotel, the Bayerischer Hof, one of Europe’s grand hotels, built in the 1840s in the Neo-Renaissance style with Italian flair, featuring monumental staircases and rabbit-warren corridors leading to grand, chandeliered rooms. The main speakers take to the stage in the largest hall while roundtable discussions occur in smaller, crowded rooms with audiences of 30 to 50 people. Delegates race from event to event, meeting to meeting, stopping frequently for conversations in the corridors and on the staircases with acquaintances, colleagues, and friends. Unlike the free-roaming and large fee-paying delegates, journalists are shuttled from event to event by young men and women – often on loan from the military – and sit up back in the nosebleeds where, like good children, they are to be seen and not heard. The official Munich rule that you should have honest conversations but avoid lecturing was mostly but not always followed, especially by certain American senators.
The official agenda was packed, and its content addressed the main themes driving foreign and defence ministries across Europe. Ukraine and the persistent threat from Russia were front and centre, with participants in multiple sessions hoping that this would be the last year in which the Ukraine war would be an ongoing and prominent agenda item.
Throughout, in both the speeches and the comments of participants across almost all events, was a recognition that the world had changed in significant ways – and especially over the past year – and that a new era of geopolitical rupture had occurred. It was commonplace to hear that new thinking would be needed and actions taken to deal with a world in which great power contestation dominates, that alliances would need to be built as much on capacity and deliverables as on shared values, and that more would need to be spent on defence and security for Europe to realise its newfound ambition to be a greater, more cohesive geopolitical actor able to adequately fend for itself.
No matter where you were in the conference — whether listening to a world leader’s speech or an Oxford-style debate — the overall and pervasive feeling amongst many participants was one of anxiety. So much so that this year’s MSC could well have been called the Munich Insecurity Conference. And that sense of angst was less, as in past years, over Russia’s ability to continue to wage war in Ukraine, which many thought was reaching an end — possibly too much optimism in my view — than anxiety over the transatlantic relationship. At least for the first half of the conference.
Every happy family is alike
Expectations were low after last year’s conference, where US Vice President JD Vance gave what many considered a gratuitously insulting address. It also came after a year of brutality in transatlantic relations, punctuated by tariffs, public berating, widening rifts over how to deal with Russia, a National Security Strategy warning of “civilisational erasure”, and even threats of force against Greenland. Participants feared yet another Munich Rule-violating lecture. Although most thought things couldn’t go as awry as last year.
In many ways, the “vibe” in transatlantic relations improved. The US sent its largest congressional delegation ever. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a speech that, while not representing new policy, was widely well-received. In the room, delegates’ body language initially suggested guardedness — arms crossed, cautiously listening to the more standard politician talk of shared history, values and culture. But as the US’s “chief diplomat” lightened the mood with a few jokes, the audience gradually warmed up, and he ultimately received a standing ovation. Some anxiety lifted.
Although I’m not sure it should. While Rubio was more conciliatory and polite than JD Vance one year earlier, the difference was one of tone rather than of substance. It reminded me, first, of an old definition of a diplomat: “A person who can tell you to go to hell in such a tactful way that you’ll look forward to making the trip”. And it reminded me, second, of a distinction that the political scientist George Lakoff drew between the “strict father” and “nurturant parent” models of governance. Vance the bad cop, Rubio the good cop. After a year of Trump’s erratic, volatile and threatening behaviour, Rubio’s message of unconditional love for Europe was undoubtedly welcome but felt like what he was really saying was “I know your dad has been harsh with you, but you know he means well, darling.”
A literal reading of Rubio’s speech suggests that the Trump administration wants European nations to reinvigorate their economic model, boost their own defence, and rediscover both their pride and ambitions. Reading only ever so slightly between the lines, however, the speech was a lament for the demise of European colonialism and a wish for its revival. The Kremlin would spot some alignment in wanting to weaken European institutions, deal with nations bilaterally, and arrest the descent into “woke” abstractions – albeit for very different reasons. China will see a US wanting to revive the collective West to encircle it, temper its rise, and circumvent the multilateral system that has largely been conducive to its growth. Nations of the “Global South” would find extremely jarring – and potentially worrisome – Rubio’s recollections of the halcyon days of European imperialism. And many Europeans with any recollection of history would have reservations about calls to unleash national pride. (As one German put it to us privately, the last three times in the past two centuries when German national pride has been unleashed, it has not ended well.) Even some Americans, with a colonial history thrown off only through protracted bloodshed, may be bemused at the reverent references to imperial expansionism.
It is an open question what impact the Trump administration’s admonitions to European bureaucracy will have: framing migration as an “existential” issue for Western civilisation, appeals to a shared “Christian” identity, and the cultivation of far-right politicians across the continent. Broadly, delegates thought Trump’s diplomacy – and Trumpism – seems to have injected momentum in some places but taken the wind out in others. In many ways, Trump is less exporting a political revolution than a communications one, about how to communicate effectively, if brashly, in the age of social media, circumventing the mainstream press and discarding politeness and diplomatic niceties.
The West and the Rest
Far less attention was paid to China. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s speech got little media attention, likely in part because his messages were less unexpected and more consistent. Wang pitched China as a force for stability, peace and harmony, for multilateralism, for treating countries — especially “small and medium-sized” ones — with respect, and for defending international law. More subtle and indirect than Rubio — not once mentioning America or He Who Must Not Be Named — Wang nevertheless sought to contrast American erraticism, grandiosity and unreliability with China’s more stable and reliable approach to international affairs. But despite Wang’s friendly messages — Europe and China are partners, not enemies — he received no standing ovation, no interruptions with applause, and generated almost no conversation in the corridors. Perhaps an indication that, despite all the merits in what Wang was saying, Rubio’s appeal to civilisational bonds will always run deeper than even the most respectful relations with countries with very different cultures. Politics is, after all, tribal.
Considering the year’s trials and tribulations in transatlantic relations, it is not surprising that Asia — as with much of the rest of the world — barely featured at Munich. The focus was on how Europe can strengthen its defence and better contend with geopolitical competition in its own “backyard”, including in places like the Sahel, where Russia has filled the vacuum created by French withdrawal. The Arctic, of course, received decent attention with debates – compared to past years – much more focused on its potential for extracting hydrocarbons than arresting the melting of ice sheets. And energy security had risen from a relatively technical and niche area that, several years ago, may have merited one panel session, to one that got its own multi-day side conference.
A former Australian minister once told me that diplomacy was about four things: protocol, vitriol, alcohol, and paracetamol (or Tylenol for the Americans). The MSC can be trusted to deliver on the first three. Though it’s wise to BYO the latter.
If you’re thinking of attending next year and want to make sure you get more out of it than a few panels and a handful of business cards, we can help. The real value of Munich isn’t just in the speeches — it’s in the corridors, the side events, the private dinners, and the conversations that weren’t scheduled three weeks in advance.
At Geopolitical Strategy, we work with clients not only to interpret the geopolitics on display, but to navigate the equally complex, fluid and labyrinthine ecosystem around it — who matters, where to be, how to show up, and how to turn access into something that endures. If this is of interest, feel free to write.
In the meantime, for those who prefer not to wait for the next conference to understand where the world is heading, the paid edition of Geopolitical Dispatch provides five tightly argued analyses every weekday, interpreting the day’s key geopolitical developments through both a strategic and business lens, and clarifying what they mean for business leaders and investors.
Best wishes,
Damien
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