A year after US Vice President JD Vance berated Europe and set the tone for new coercive foreign policy, nearly 50 heads of state and government are gathering at Munich Security Conference to discuss the ongoing churn in the world — from the Russia-Ukraine war to West Asia.
A year after US Vice President JD Vance berated Europe and set the tone for the new coercive foreign policy, nearly 50 heads of state and government will start gathering in Munich on Friday to discuss the ongoing churn in the world — from the Russia-Ukraine war to West Asia.
Last year, Vance arrived at the Munich Security Conference as US President Donald Trump’s ambassador to put the world on notice.
Vance berated Europe over immigration and free speech, unabashedly intervened in domestic politics by endorsing far-right parties and slamming moderates, and presented European countries —allies for eight decades— as the problem and not the Russian shadow war on Ukraine or Chinese aggression.
In the year since Vance’s speech, Trump has gone on a head-spinning reversal of decadeslong bipartisan US policy: he has pushed Nato to the breaking point, antagonised European allies, realigned the United States with Russia, and elevated China as an equal and cut the ‘G-2’ deal with Xi Jinping.
Between the two Munich conferences, Trump has not achieved what he set out to do: the Russian war on Ukraine is nowhere close to an end and the war in the Gaza Strip is also far from over.
In the meantime, European leaders have recognised they need to step up and have begun an unprecedented rearmament programme. They have also taken over as the Ukraine’s primary and financial backer.
At the Munich Security Conference this time, the US delegation would be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. His Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, will also attend the conference. Among other world leaders attending would be French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Russia-Ukraine war to take centre-stage
The Munich Security Conference shall take place at a time when the progress on efforts to end the war in Ukraine is mixed at best.
Ukraine and Russia are holding US-mediated peace talks, but the war does not appear to be close. But there has been progress as well.
For one, Russia agreed to a ceasefire for the first time during these talks. But even that ceasefire was piecemeal — Trump said it would last for a week but Russia only observed it for a week.
Then, as negotiators gathered at Abu Dhabi for the second round of talks, Russia declared that the war would continue until Ukraine’s acceptance of its terms.
As peace talks have trudged along with near-daily Russian attacks, European leaders have rallied behind Ukraine and stepped in over the past year to fill gap left behind by the withdrawal of US military, intelligence, and financial support. They have also stressed that no deal could be made without Europe’s involvement.
Ahead of the Munich Security Conference, European Union (EU) foreign minister Kaja Kallas on Tuesday said the bloc would soon formally submit terms to Russia for the end of the war.
Kallas said, “Everybody around the table, including the Russians and the Americans, needs to understand that you need Europeans to agree. And for that, we also have conditions. And we should put the conditions not on Ukrainians, who have been already pressured a lot, but on the Russians.”
Kallas said it would be pointless for Europe to demand a seat on the table if it would not stand up for anything.
“If we don’t stand up for anything, there’s no point for us to be around the table. It’s important that we discuss what kind of concessions we need to see from the Russian side in order to have a sustainable peace,” said Kallas.
End of Article
