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Defence

Munich Security Report 2023

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Abstract in English: 
The Munich Security Report (MSR) 2023 is published ahead of the 59th Munich Security Conference (MSC) almost exactly 12 months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s war marks a turning point not only for European security but also for the international order. But where is world politics turning? This question is at the heart of this year’s MSR. Covering human rights, global infrastructures, development cooperation, energy policy, and nuclear security, the report analyzes intensifying authoritarian revisionism and the growing contest between different visions for the international order. In doing so, the MSC’s flagship publication also provides inspiration for how the defenders of the liberal, rules-based order can reenvision the order to make it both more resilient and attractive to a wider community.
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174
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Future Shocks 2022

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Friday, April 15, 2022
Abstract in English: 
This paper continues a series launched in spring 2020, which sought to identify means to strengthen the European Union's long-term resilience in the context of recovery from the coronavirus crisis. The previous
papers were: 'An initial mapping of structural risks facing the EU' (July 2020), which set out some 66 potential structural risks confronting the European Union in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis; 'Capabilities and gaps in the EU's capacity to address structural risks' (October 2020), which looked at those risks from the mapping which were considered as more immediate and significant, and considered ways in which the EU and Member States could address them, either with existing capabilities or through filling gaps in policies and instruments; and 'Options to enhance the EU's resilience to structural risks' (Aril 2021), which examined in greater detail, in 25 of the fields presented in the previous papers, possible action by the EU and highlighted proposals from various quarters, including the European Parliament itself, and at potential or actual constraints that might hinder action in these fields. This latest paper first looks anew at 15 risks facing the European Union, in the changed context of a world coming out of the coronavirus crisis, but one in which a war has been launched just outside the Union's borders. It then looks in greater detail at 11 policy responses the EU could take to address the risks outlined and to strengthen the Union's resilience to them.
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208
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All security is local: Arctic defense policies and domain awareness

Title Original Language: 
All security is local: Arctic defense policies and domain awareness
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Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Abstract in English: 
This report assesses the defense policies of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden as they apply to the Arctic. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its militarization of the Kola Peninsula, and its opposition to the liberal international order forced Arctic states to revisit their defense policies. Some focused attention on the Baltic Sea. Others focused on territorial defense. Still others focused on the Arctic. By 2021, however, each state had a relatively well-defined defense policy for the Arctic. This report details each policy’s content, trends over time within each country, and areas of convergence or divergence across countries. The report then places the concept of domain awareness within the context of Arctic defense strategies. The report concludes with recommendations on acquiring and using manned and unmanned systems, data links, distributed basing, and military exercises to ensure a secure and stable Arctic.
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Number of pages: 
48
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Great power projection in the Middle East: The China-Russia relationship as a force multiplier

Title Original Language: 
Great power projection in the Middle East: The China-Russia relationship as a force multiplier
Original Language: 
Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Abstract in English: 
Russia and China are often mischaracterized as allies. There is a perception that their revisionist preferences for international order align, and that their desires for a less US-centered international order mean they are collaborating toward this end. The challenge they pose to the United States has been acknowledged by the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, and “great power competition”’ (GPC) or “strategic competition” has replaced counterterrorism at the center of US strategy. The Biden administration’s 2021 Interim National Security Strategy Guidance states that “we face . . . growing rivalry with China, Russia, and other authoritarian states.” It describes China as “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system,” and Russia as “determined to enhance its global influence and play a disruptive role on the world stage.” The Pentagon’s “2+3” framework for GPC has China and Russia as the two primary threats, and North Korea, Iran, and terrorism as the three secondary threats, reinforcing a two-tiered system that implies that “China and Russia are similar threats while the others are lower in priority.” In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), their behavior-tandem vetoes on Syria at the United Nations, mutual anger about Libya, arms exports to traditional US allies, and cooperating with Iran despite multilateral sanctions5—feeds into the perception that they have a coordinated agenda to push out the United States, or at least to challenge its preponderance there. In a February 2021 speech by General Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command overseeing MENA and Central Asia, he noted that “the United States faces increasing competition in the region from Russia and China, both vying for power and influence through a combination of diplomatic, military, and economic means. This adds another layer of tension and instability to an already complex and challenging region.” This report provides a comparative analysis of the approaches that China and Russia have adopted to develop their regional presence in MENA across four realms of influence: political, economic, security, and public diplomacy.
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32
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Munich Security Report 2022: Turning the Tide – Unlearning Helplessness

Title Original Language: 
Munich Security Report 2022: Turning the Tide – Unlearning Helplessness
Original Language: 
Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, February 14, 2022
Abstract in English: 
2021 was clearly not a year for geopolitical optimism. Almost every month, a new crisis dominated the news, contributing to a sense that this mounting tide of crises threatens to overwhelm us. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that in Europe and beyond, concern about a growing loss of control is prevalent. In fact, findings from the Munich Security Index 2022 not only reflect the high level of risk perceived by respondents in the G7 and BRICS countries; they also suggest the emergence of “collective helplessness” in the face of a plethora of crises that reinforce each other. Just like people can suffer from “learned helplessness” – a psychological term describing the feeling that nothing one does can effect positive change – societies, too, may come to believe that they are unable to get a grip on the challenges they are facing. Whether it is the seemingly endless pandemic, the increasingly tangible threat of climate change, the vexing vulnerabilities of an interconnected world, or increasing geopolitical tensions, all these challenges contribute to a feeling of a loss of control. Liberal democracies appear to feel particularly overwhelmed. This perception is highly dangerous because it can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Societies that have concluded that they cannot solve humankind’s most challenging problems might no longer even try to turn the tide. Will our stressed and overburdened societies end up accepting what they see as their fate, although they have the tools and resources to change it? Unfortunately, 2021 overall did not alleviate these concerns. With the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, for instance, the past year has also reinvigorated a debate about what international interventions are able to realistically accomplish. In light of the limited achievements of the United States and its partners in Afghanistan, hard questions arise about the West’s ability to build capable, legitimate state structures and promote stability elsewhere in the world. As Afghanistan now finds itself on the brink of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with civil liberties being severely restricted under Taliban rule, the investments of two decades of external intervention are at risk. While the West has ended an “endless war,” people in Afghanistan are looking toward an uncertain future.
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182
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Munich Security Report 2021 Between States of Matter – Competition and Cooperation

Title Original Language: 
Munich Security Report 2021 Between States of Matter – Competition and Cooperation
Original Language: 
Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Abstract in English: 
Transatlantic leaders seem to have come to a common conclusion: the world’s liberal democracies are facing a new systemic competition. While they support a joint strategy for dealing with their autocratic challengers by strengthening cooperation with each other, they are only at the beginning of thinking about the best way to compete where they must – and to cooperate with competitors where they can. At last year’s Munich Security Conference, world leaders discussed a world shaped by “Westlessness” – as diagnosed by the Munich Security Report 2020. Unfortunately, various developments have vindicated last year’s dire analysis. Not only did Western countries continue to exhibit a lack of joint action on crucial global issues, the past year also saw continued attacks on liberal-democratic norms in key Western countries, with the storming of the US Capitol as the most emblematic symbol of the threat to democracy. But there is hope. In the midst of a global pandemic, almost exactly one year after a divisive Munich Security Conference 2020, the speakers at the virtual MSC Special Edition on February 19, 2021, including US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and other world leaders all voiced their support for a new beginning in the transatlantic relationship and for revamping cooperation among liberal democracies to prevail in a new age of systemic competition. After what can be called an “autocratic decade,” liberal democracies are now willing to push back to turn the “illiberal tide.” President Biden, having declared that “America is back” and ready to lead, is stressing at every opportunity that democracies find themselves at an inflection point and need to prove that democracy is not a phase-out model but can deliver tangible benefits to the people.
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Number of pages: 
160
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Global Strategy 2022

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Abstract in English: 
This paper offers a comprehensive strategy to manage and develop US relations with Russia over the next twenty years. This strategy seeks to thwart current Kremlin efforts to undermine the international system that the United States helped create after World War II and revise after the Cold War; to cooperate in the short and medium term on issues of mutual interest, in particular arms control; and to establish in the long term a broad cooperative relationship once Moscow recognizes that its own security and prosperity are best realized in partnership with the United States and the West.
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Number of pages: 
67
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Munich Security Report 2022

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Monday, February 14, 2022
Abstract in English: 
2021 was clearly not a year for geopolitical optimism. Almost every month, a new crisis dominated the news, contributing to a sense that this mounting tide of crises
threatens to overwhelm us.
Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that in Europe and beyond, concern about a growing loss of control is prevalent. In fact, findings from the Munich Security Index 2022 not only reflect the high level of risk perceived by respondents in the G7 and BRICS countries; they also suggest the emergence of “collective helplessness” in the face of a plethora of crises that reinforce each other. Just like people can suffer from “learned helplessness” – a psychological term describing the feeling that nothing one does can effect positive change – societies, too, may come to believe that they are unable to get a grip on the challenges they are facing. Whether it is the seemingly endless pandemic, the increasingly tangible threat of climate change, the vexing vulnerabilities of an interconnected world, or increasing geopolitical tensions, all these challenges contribute to a feeling of a loss of control. Liberal democracies appear to feel particularly overwhelmed.
This perception is highly dangerous because it can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Societies that have concluded that they cannot solve humankind’s most challenging problems might no longer even try to turn the tide. Will our stressed and overburdened societies end up accepting what they see as their fate, although they have the tools and resources to change it?
File: 
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Number of pages: 
182
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State of the Union 2021

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Abstract in English: 
In her State of the Union address on 15 September 2021, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen outlined flagship initiatives which the Commission plans to undertake in the coming year. They will among others include:
- Continuing the vaccination efforts in Europe and speeding up vaccination globally, as well as strengthening the pandemic preparedness
- Working on closing the climate finance gap, together with our global partners
- Leading the digital transformation that will create jobs and drive competitiveness, while ensuring technical excellence and security of supply
- Ensuring fairer working conditions and better healthcare, and creating more opportunities for Europe’s youth to benefit from the European social market economy
- Stepping up our cooperation on security and defence, and deepening EU’s partnership with closest allies
- Defending European values and freedoms, and protecting the rule of law
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21
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