2019 Munich Security Conference: Who will pick up the pieces?
Written by Alisa Tsavaa, March 2019
The US and Europe appear to have given up on attempts to respect each other, while the entire liberal order seems to be breaking into pieces, and nobody wants to take responsibility and defend what has been achieved so far, namely Transatlantic security cooperation.
The Munich Security conference is the largest annual event on international security issues that has been held since 1963. Over the past five decades, Europe and the US have stood together advocating prevention of military conflicts and promoting peaceful cooperation. At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, which took place from 15 to 17 February, European and American senior officials and diplomats, joined by their colleagues from Asia and Russia, gathered to address the current challenges of reshuffling the world order.
Quite sadly, the EU and US, once at the forefront of defending the post-war liberal order, seem to be unable to prevent it from falling apart. This became evident at the Conference during which both European and American representatives chose to focus on their contradictions regarding NATO. Only lone figures like Wolfgang Ischinger, the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, were desperately trying to remind the politicians of the purpose of the event. His final remark concluding the conference was full of frustration: “...some speakers were less interested in putting the pieces back together than in creating more disarray in our international system.”
As Germany’s long-serving chancellor Angela Merkel wisely put it: “the well-tried and familiar framework of order is under strong pressure at the moment.” In a worrying speech, US Vice President Mike Pence unleashed a wave of criticism leveled against European countries that are reluctant to contribute more to NATO’s financial and military well-being. Instead of offering a common agenda on security or addressing the rising superpowers competition between the US, Russia, and China (which was expected by many in Europe), Pence chose to accuse the EU of not being tough on Iran, Venezuela, or Nord Stream.
Frankly speaking, were it not for the Trump-admiring Italian government, which vetoed the EU proposal on Venezuela, the EU could have introduced its common position on it. However, such statements from the Vice President did not come as a shock, especially considering Trump-led US withdrawal from hard-won multilateral treaties and agreements.
Unfortunately, the EU was not flawless either. Merkel’s fired-up, fierce speech rebuking Trumpism (although she did not mention his name) demonstrated that Europe would not be standing still while the US was trying to break out of its commitments. “Who can pick up the pieces of the world’s puzzle? Only all of us together,” she proclaimed, causing a wave of the audience’s excitement and applause. Such rhetoric was a sound response to US unwillingness to live up to its agreements and promises, and the Chancellor did appear to be the chief defender of the free world.
Europe (represented by Merkel) made the same mistake as Trump’s America: whilst offering a litany of criticism leveled against the US and its protectionist-isolationist policies, it forgot to pay due attention to the rise of authoritarian superpowers like China and Russia and the treats their resurgence may pose to the international order. As China and Russia may well come closer on their negative views on the Western-led liberal world’s arrangements and constraints and thus take pains to get rid of them, Europe and the US are preoccupied with internal divisions and disputes over European reluctance to pay more and US lack of commitment towards NATO.
It may seem that in two years it will be possible to fix the existing tensions if we are to consider next US elections, in which Trump hopefully will not come up as a winner. However, such an approach is fraught with severe risk. Nobody knows what next steps the Trump administration may undertake against NATO or any other painstakingly concluded agreements, plus the threat of terrorism, global warming, and rising authoritarianism do not promise to vanish away, but quite the opposite they might gain ground.
Overall, what dominated the conference was a shared feeling by many that the post-Cold war liberal order that seemed to be set in stone is falling apart. Fortunately there has not been a full-blown crisis on Trump’s watch, but this should not be a reason to sit still. It is easy to destroy what has been achieved so far, but it is an arduous task to recreate it. It may happen that there will be less and less desire from the West to deal with changing world order and undertake more responsibility trying to preserve it.
