More than 450 leaders, half of them heads of state and senior government representatives, are meeting at the 60th Munich Security Conference (MSC) to debate international security policy from this Friday to Sunday. The summit of the geopolitical elite, also known as the “Davos of defense”, is held against the backdrop of the wars in Israel and Ukraine, whose presidents are invited. As in the last edition, the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, will make a speech on Saturday to ask Western leaders to continue supporting the country to face the Russian invasion, which will be two years old next week.
Here are the keys to the main international conference that each year aims to debate the most relevant security challenges of today, under the motto “building peace through dialogue”:
The independent forum, always held in Germany’s third largest city, is a place where world rulers, ministers, military or intelligence chiefs, as well as activists, businessmen and other actors, can carry out “diplomatic initiatives.” official and unofficial that address the most pressing security concerns of the moment,” defines the summit organizing company. The objective of the meeting is to exchange ideas and points of view, although this often leads its participants to express complaints. All attendees stay in the same hotel (the Bayerischer Hof), which sometimes causes some tension. It began in 1963, with the Cold War in full swing, when German leaders met with NATO allies for a “transatlantic family reunion.”
Some 180 senior government representatives are expected to attend, including the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Yi. In addition to Zelensky, other notable attendees this year include US Vice President Kamala Harris (who will give her speech this Friday), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, UN Secretary General , António Guterres, as well as leaders from Eastern European countries or Qatar, Iraq or Lebanon. The big absentees will be Russia and Iran, both main actors in the two major wars currently being fought, in Ukraine and Israel, respectively.
While the hottest security issues of today, the war in Ukraine and that of Israel and Hamas in Gaza will be discussed during the summit. Other topics will also be discussed such as sexual violence as a weapon, the protection of humanitarian laws, misinformation (which will be attended by Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa), security of access to water or corruption, among many others. .
NATO and European defense are also on the agenda. “The conference coincides with the start of Operation Steadfast Defender, the largest military exercise in Europe since the Cold War, and will test whether NATO could prevent a hypothetical Russian invasion,” notes the international consulting firm Eurasia Group.
A few days before Russia sent its tanks to Ukraine, Zelensky asked the summit participants for help, who responded with strong support. Two years later, Western powers are less enthusiastic. Kyiv has been waiting for months for the vote on a crucial $60 billion in aid decided by the administration of Joe Biden, campaigning for a second term, but hampered by the Republican opposition under the influence of Donald Trump. The package recently cleared the Senate hurdle but is blocked in the House of Representatives. In this regard, the Ukrainian leader will hold several bilateral talks, in particular with US Vice President Kamala Harris.
As for the European Union, with a lower weapons production capacity than the US, it will need to double its military support to Ukraine to fill the gap in US aid, in case the tap on the other side of the Atlantic is permanently closed, according to the latest report from the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker.
The war between Israel and Hamas, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the threat of escalation in the Middle East will also occupy an important place at the conference. One of the topics to be discussed will be the “future of relations between Israel and Palestine” (with the participation of the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares). Complex negotiations are currently underway in Cairo for a truce that includes further releases of Hamas hostages and Palestinians held by Israel. The president of the MSC, Christoph Heusgen, reported that he expected a meeting on the sidelines of the debates between the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, and the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammed Shtayyeh. However, the former has withdrawn from the negotiations and the latter is not represented.
