Event Summary
Is "Westlessness" inevitable? – MSC Kick-off 2020 in Berlin
"What does it mean for the world if the West leaves the stage to others?" This is the overarching question of the Munich Security Report 2020, which Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, presented at this year’s MSC Kick-off event on February 10 at the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin with over 300 guests. Christoph Heusgen, Anne-Marie Descôtes and James L. Jones joined for a panel discussion on the internal and external challenges facing the Western project.
We are witnessing a period of “Westlessness” – the West itself is becoming less Western, and the world is becoming less Western, too. With this observation, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), opened this year’s MSC Kick-off event and introduced the main topic of the Munich Security Report 2020. The event, which took place on February 10 at the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin, drew more than 300 guests from Berlin’s political, diplomatic, business, media and think tank communities. The presentation of the Munich Security Report 2020 was followed by a high-level panel discussion on the crisis of the West and its future role in the world. The panel featured Christoph Heusgen, Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, Anne-Marie Descôtes, the French Ambassador to Germany, and James L. Jones, former National Security Advisor to US President Barack Obama, and was moderated by Anna Sauerbrey, member of the Editorial Board of Der Tagesspiegel.
The Munich Security Report (MSR) 2020, titled "Westlessness," serves as a conversation starter for the 56th Munich Security Conference and background reading for security professionals and the broader interested public. Featuring insightful analyses, data, maps, and infographics, it sheds light on some of the most critical challenges to international security. This year, the Munich Security Report focused on the role of the West in the world, and how it is challenged both internally and externally: by the emergence of illiberalism inside many Western countries, growing disunity among Western nations, and the relative rise of non-Western powers. Lead author Tobias Bunde, who presented the Report at the Kick-off event, described a West that is struck by fundamental uncertainty. As the liberal interpretation of the West meets growing resistance from an illiberal and nationalist “counter-West,” the question of what precisely holds the West together has become a matter of fierce debate. As a result of growing disunity and uncertainty, Bunde argued, “the West seems to have lost its ambition to shape global politics.” The implications are felt in many regions of the world, among them the Middle East and the Southern Mediterranean, two regions that are also covered in the Munich Security Report 2020.
Focus on Values Instead of Geography
The audience was less pessimistic about the ability of Western states to shape their own future. In a live poll taken during the event, which asked the audience whether the decline of the West was inevitable, 71 percent of respondents said “no.” This optimistic view was also palpable among participants of the panel discussion, even though “the West is going through a difficult crisis,” as Anne-Marie Descôtes put it. It became clear, however, that for the West to emerge from this challenging period stronger and more united than before, it would have to do more than just analyze the paradigm shift in the strategic landscape. Western states – European ones in particular – have to start acting upon those challenges. Most importantly, their response must be values-based: As James L. Jones argued, strengthening the West has to be about more than just trade, military power, and the vigor of our economies – it has to put human rights and essential freedoms front and center.
From Westlessness to Like-mindedness?
The panel debate also reflected some disagreement about the utility of the idea of the West. Efforts to strengthen human rights, liberal freedoms, and the rules-based global order more generally did not need to be linked to the West, argued Christoph Heusgen. In fact, the UN Charter, which was not Western, but codified universal values, already contained all these ideas.
Yet, in order to reinvigorate liberal principles and the role of the West in the world, Western countries first have to defend and promote them at home. Growing populism, participants argued, cannot be confronted without a concerted effort to restore societal cohesion and fight inequality within the West itself.
The debate kicked-off in Berlin will continue in a few days in Munich. At the Munich Security Conference, which some observers describe as a “family meeting” of the Western community, discussions about the state and future of the West will occupy a prominent role.
