MUNICH, Germany — The premier who’s who? of “the political West” is underway for the 56th year in a row, as hundreds of foreign policy and national security leaders, heads of state, top diplomats, and senior military officials from around the world have made their annual trek to the Munich Security Conference.
The conference provides a high-profile forum for government decision-makers, former officials, and analysts to give speeches, participate in panel discussions, or even just rub elbows. Sometimes, the elbows are quite sharp. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the 2007 conference to declare his hostility to the “unipolar world” led by the United States. The following year, Putin ordered the invasion of Georgia, the first of two conflicts over the last 12 years in which Moscow would use military force to carve territory away from a former Soviet vassal state.
So the Munich Security Conference is not merely think-tank nirvana. It’s a place for allies, partners, and adversaries to gather and lay down public markers and hold private meetings about local hot spots and global foreign policy trends alike.
In 2017, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov marked the 10th anniversary of Putin’s speech by calling for a “post-West world order,” as he played on European anxiety about the ramifications of Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential elections three months earlier.
This angst has deepened into the sense of “Westlessness” that is the theme of the conference. “The world is becoming less Western. But more importantly, the West itself may become less Western, too,” the 2020 Munich Security Conference report says. “The contemporary ‘spiritual disunity of the West’ is due to the rise of an illiberal and nationalist camp within the Western world.”
The report authors regard Trump among those disintegrating forces given his stated hostility to “globalists.” They continue to lament the United Kingdom’s “painful long goodbye” from the European Union. Brexit has altered the balance of power within the EU, and French President Emmanuel Macron, some observers suspect, sees an opportunity to enhance the political influence of Paris while taking a half-step away from Washington.
“Strategic stability in Europe requires more than the comfort provided by a transatlantic convergence with the United States,” Macron said last week. “To build the Europe of tomorrow, our norms cannot be controlled by the United States, our infrastructure, our ports and airports owned by Chinese capital, and our computer networks under Russian pressure.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to dispute the idea that Trump’s presence in the White House undermines transatlantic security in his Saturday morning speech “about the West and the West’s role in the world.” Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper are both likely to renew their warnings that Europe should beware of China’s ambitions for economic and political influence on the continent. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette’s attendance makes three cabinet officials at the conference, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the top lawmaker in a bipartisan congressional delegation.
Washington’s worsening rivalry with Beijing could be a long-term sticking point between U.S. and European allies, the conference organizers warn.
“In essence, Europe may be forced to make a choice, as it will no longer be possible to be a full-fledged U.S. ally while engaging in a far-reaching economic partnership with China,” the report said. “What if U.S.-China tensions came to a head? According to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations, clear majorities in Europe would want to remain neutral in case of a conflict between China and the United States.”
And yet, it is perhaps a good sign for U.S. efforts to counter China that Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will lead a delegation from New Delhi for the first time in the history of the conference. The significance of his appearance will not be lost on Lavrov or Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who will have front-row seats to a debate over how to sustain and expand what some NATO officials hope will be “an alliance of democracies” to deter authoritarian regimes.
“While the liberal triumphalism of the early Cold War period exaggerated the ease with which liberal values would take over the whole globe, a requiem for the West as a set of ideas is premature,” the MSC organizers concluded. “The transatlantic partners will have to reach out even more proactively to like-minded states across the world and think about new ways to ramp up cooperation among liberal democracies, revitalizing the West for the 21st century.”
