At this year’s conference, the Western establishment is taking on Russia and Donald Trump

The most ardent defenders of the Western ‘rules-based international order’ are meeting at the Munich Security Conference this weekend. This year, the focus isn’t just on Russia – it’s also on US President Donald Trump and the ‘populist’ threat in Europe.

The first two days delivered a familiar mix of alarmism and contradiction. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to bridge the rift Trump’s policies caused with the EU, invoking the old ‘common adversaries’ narrative to urge US-EU unity. The UK’s Keir Starmer parroted claims that Russia could attack NATO by 2030 – a scenario that Moscow ridicules – to push Europe to spend more taxpayer money on the military.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has been farming for more funding for his war effort, while French President Emmanuel Macron called for diplomatic channels with Moscow to be reopened, and floated a joint EU nuclear doctrine almost in the same breath.

Ursula von der Leyen spoke about threats to the EU’s “democratic” way of life, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz again vowed to build “the strongest conventional army in Europe,” Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado threatened South American states with Trump’s regime-change ops, and several US politicians used the forum to rail against their president.

There have been voices of reason, notably Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and India’s S. Jaishankar, who called for global unity and multipolarity – but not many more.

The third and final day focuses on ‘Europe in the world’ and has been filled with more politicking, with headliners including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, ECB President Christine Lagarde, and former NATO chief and current Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

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