Unity in a Time of Upheaval
A Readout From the Munich Security Conference 2022
Overshadowed by the growing threat of a major military conflict in Eastern Europe, this year's Munich Security Conference (MSC) occurred at a particularly critical moment for European security and international peace. Nonetheless, as the Munich Security Report 2022 had hoped for, the political leaders present in Munich actively fought the impression of being helpless in the face of the "Russia crisis" and many other overlapping conflicts. A special Munich Security Brief summarizes the conference's key takeaways.
After one year of hiatus, the 58th Munich Security Conference, the last one chaired by Wolfgang Ischinger, again took place in person – even though due to the ongoing pandemic, the number of participants was massively reduced. Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and many other elements of what the Munich Security Report 2022 describes as a "rising tide of crises" had left little doubt about the urgent need for the international security community to resume in-person gatherings.
For the first time in decades, the Russian government was not represented in Munich. But it was all too present in speeches, panel debates, and informal discussions at Hotel Bayerischer Hof on the conference weekend. In what many perceived as a gloomy atmosphere, transatlantic leaders – including US Vice President Kamala D. Harris, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – actively fought the impression of being helpless in the face of overlapping conflicts and crises: even if they were unable to prevent a major war, they highlighted, they were still determined to make it costly for Russia. Yet, President Zelensky, who issued a powerful plea for help for Ukraine, warned Western countries that alignment in words was not enough to deter a Russian attack.
The Munich Security Brief argues that in the face of revisionism by authoritarian powers and attacks on liberal democratic values, the new-found transatlantic unity is highly encouraging. Yet, it is not an end in itself. Transatlantic leaders now have to turn their alignment into concrete responses to the many challenges ahead – above all, by imposing massive costs on Russia for its brutal military attack against Ukraine.
While the "Russia crisis" dominated the conference, the debates on the main stage, in townhalls, roundtables, and side events reflected a diverse set of global risks that require urgent collective responses – from the erosion of democracy, the climate crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic to dependencies on critical technologies and challenges in the Indo-Pacific.
