On the primary morning of the Munich Safety Convention, February 14, I arrived on the press workplace to request an escort to enter the Bayerischer Hof, the opulent resort that hosts this annual convening of politicians, generals, weapons producers, and expertise firms. The room appeared like an airport lounge—gleaming white tables with copies of Overseas Coverage, an inaudible convention livestream—and vibrated with the vitality of journalists from around the globe begging to get inside. Many attendees had been prepared to talk to the press, however the workers had been instructed to discourage them.
I approached the desk, explaining that I had an appointment with Hichem Khadhraoui, the top of the worldwide Middle for Civilians in Battle, an NGO that works with communities and armed teams to guard civilians in wars. “He wants to talk to you for an hour?” the convention staffer replied, incredulous. “Does he have a suite? We can only let you in if you’re going to a suite.” “Only rich people have suites,” I answered reflexively. (A set on the Hof typically runs from round seven hundred euros an evening to greater than 12,500.) Finally a younger, severe girl whom I’ll name Jessa was assigned to accompany me.
The Munich Safety Convention, created in 1963, as soon as introduced collectively German navy officers with their United States and NATO counterparts to debate countering the USSR. In its early years a couple of dozen individuals attended, however in 2025 some 450 CEOs, generals, and politicians had been crammed into the Bayerisher Hof for what members typically name “Davos with guns.” As I waited to go via safety, carrying a yellow badge that indicated I didn’t carry a firearm, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who occupies a ceremonial function within the authorities, opened with a speech committing his nation to European unity, trans-Atlanticism and the protection of liberal democracy. “The absence of rules must not become the guiding principle of a new world order,” he stated sternly, omitting any reference to German leaders, who had refused to commit to implementing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued by the Worldwide Prison Court docket.
Steinmeier was a warmup for the afternoon’s primary occasion: a speech by US Vice President J. D. Vance. Steinmeier conceded that the US would doubtless withdraw a few of its troops from Europe. However he’d met with Vance earlier, he reassured the gang, and “told him that, regardless of what your decision may be, discuss it with us.”
When he took the stage, Vance didn’t speak about warfare. The crises weren’t in Ukraine, or Gaza, or Sudan, however inside. He criticized European nations for limiting free speech. He famous that “almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad” and introduced up an assault the previous day, when a male Afghan asylum seeker drove right into a crowd close to the Munich central prepare station, killing two individuals and injuring greater than twenty-five others. “How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?” He then tried to make a joke on the expense of the local weather activist Greta Thunberg, however nobody laughed.
“There is no room for firewalls,” he continued—an allusion to the truth that German events had, till lately, sworn off cooperating with the far-right Different for Germany (AfD) within the Bundestag. Later the German press would report that, earlier than coming into the safety convention, Vance had met in Munich with the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel, who was banned from the proceedings. German politicians had been particularly horrified by Vance’s speech: Within the viewers had been Friedrich Merz, chief of the Christian Democratic Union, and members of the present authorities, a few of whom later made impromptu statements defending German democracy and vowed to ramp up protection in order to not depend on the US.
The push for European militarization began lengthy earlier than Donald Trump’s second time period. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EU has raced to funnel cash towards weapons. “I’m not saying we are at wartime, but we cannot say we are at peacetime anymore,” stated Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on stage in Munich. This reveals a wider development. Earnings from arms and navy providers by the hundred largest protection firms reached $632 billion in 2023, a 4.2 p.c improve from 2022, in accordance to the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute. In 2024 the UN disarmament chief warned that new applied sciences had been outpacing regulation and that the specter of a nuclear weapon getting used was the very best it had been for the reason that Chilly Struggle.
As shock unfold amongst Germany’s political elites that the US was meddling in a European (moderately than an Asian, African, or Latin American) election, Jessa introduced me to satisfy Khadhraoui. The softly lit basement room smelled like French fries and grilled meat. Jessa grabbed a desk straight throughout with a transparent line of sight and instructed me to inform her as quickly as we had been executed. Khadhraoui, who’s negotiated with armed teams in main conflicts, watched our dialogue amusedly.
I needed to know how we may take into consideration the way forward for the Geneva Conventions—the foundations governing warfare—given the elevated normalization of warfare crimes similar to bombing hospitals and focusing on civilians. “In the past years, the respect of international humanitarian law, and I would say even the basic humanitarian principles, have been completely disregarded by major actors on the planet,” Khadhraoui instructed me bluntly. One turning level, he stated, got here when the US and European allies illegally invaded Iraq in 2003; since then, armed teams around the globe have drawn their very own classes from seeing highly effective nations disregard humanitarian legislation in wartime. Khadhraoui’s imaginative and prescient of safety differed from most of these I heard bandied across the convention: “You cannot have security over protecting civilians. You cannot have security over peace.”
As Khadhraoui raced off to his subsequent assembly, Jessa indicated I may end my espresso. “Can we go to the toilet together?” she then inquired. I requested her if she was learning journalism, nevertheless it turned out that she and a lot of the minders had been college students on the close by navy academy. When she exited the lavatory and noticed I had not fled, her shoulders noticeably relaxed. As Jessa negotiated with the MSC workers to let me attend a panel subsequent door, she began to develop on me.
Inside, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda mentioned methods to improve European protection spending. Safety personnel scanned the room, which was stuffed with males in navy uniforms lounging in blue velvet chairs. Finnish President Alexander Stubb, additionally on stage, stated he thought we had been witnessing the “birth of NATO 3.0.” Whereas NATO 2.0 was centered on peacekeeping, after Russia’s assault on Ukraine the brand new NATO can’t be “no action and talk only.” The panelists agreed that the brand new American administration was appropriate to ask Europe to take accountability for its personal protection. The US gives most of NATO’s capabilities, together with housing nuclear weapons in NATO bases in Western Europe, and has some 100,000 troops deployed there. “We might sometimes dislike the tone of the ask, but it’s a serious one,” Stubb stated.
The MSC calls itself “the world’s leading forum for debating international security policy.” Along with the annual February convening, it runs closed retreats at venues like a chateau in southern Germany and the Rockefeller Bellagio villa in northern Italy. On the airplane to Munich, I learn its flagship annual report, this 12 months titled “Multipolarization.” The chapter headings had been off-putting: “India: Modi-fied Status.” “Brazil: Lula Land.” “South Africa: The Fate of Good Hope.” Many of the articles made the identical easy factors: within the aftermath of the Chilly Struggle the world was unipolar, dominated by American energy, however now extra actors had been competing for affect.
In 2014 the MSC had twenty-seven workers and an annual price range of some 1.2 million euros. Its 2023 annual report listed eighty-three workers, and its annual price range has ballooned to greater than 18 million euros, with 5.5 million for the convention alone. (This doesn’t embrace the fee to the German police, which sends officers from different districts to Munich.) Some 74 p.c of these funds come from the personal sector, many from expertise firms. Though they weren’t seen typically publicly on panels, I used to be proven an official MSC members record this 12 months that included tech and protection leaders like Alex Karp of Palantir, Chris Lombardi from Oracle, and Roisin Kennedy from Lockheed Martin. Within the areas I used to be often allowed to entry, just like the Politico lounge, few watched the mainstage discussions. Most had been in Munich to have aspect conferences and presumably make offers. Contained in the safe zone however outdoors the Bayerisher Hof had been lounges run by Deloitte, McKinsey, and different companies.
A parallel cybersecurity convening—sponsored by firms like Airbus, Google, and Meta—was underway, whereas a dinner hosted by the Council on Overseas Relations featured “a three-course meal featuring foods under threat from climate change, from red prawn carpaccio to Norwegian cod fillet confit with chive butter blanc [sic] and caviar.” Among the many friends was the chief director of the UN World Meals Programme, Cindy McCain. At a close-by bar, a returning participant confirmed me a small spherical silver coin inscribed with the letters MSC: You had executed Munich proper when somebody slipped you one by way of a handshake.
Because the convention proceeded, I heard extra European protection leaders comment that they hoped that they had lastly gotten the push from the Individuals they wanted to militarize. “Can Europe get its shit together?” a delegate requested. For Oliver Stuenkel, a political scientist at the moment primarily based at Harvard’s Kennedy Faculty, it won’t be attainable. After we chatted towards the tip of the primary day within the Politico lounge, he prompt that the bloc “lost an opportunity to actually push towards more unified stands at a time when these far-right parties were still not emerging.” In that sense Vance’s comment that Europe confronted inside threats was appropriate, simply not in the way in which he supposed it.
In 2024 Germany spent 2 p.c of its GDP on protection, the NATO goal, however Trump has referred to as for nations to spend 5. To extend spending to even 3.5 p.c “would change the country in ways that I think many Germans don’t want to,” stated Stuenkel. The social returns of protection spending are low, and to extend protection budgets European leaders must both go into debt, lower social packages or elevate taxes.
Germany’s worldwide popularity, Stuenkel stated, was tanking shortly. He cited a “ridiculous video” through which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesperson “would not explicitly say [that] if Netanyahu comes to Germany, he will be taken into custody” due to the ICC warrant. “It’s not to say that anyone is an angel in the international order or doesn’t use violence against their own people. But I mean to say that you uphold an international rule-based system and then not follow it…” His voice trailed off.
The top of the World Health Group, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who got here of age through the Ethiopian Civil Struggle and later served within the profitable Tigray Individuals’s Liberation Entrance (TPLF) authorities, additionally had a pointed critique. “I know firsthand how war feels,” he instructed an auditorium at a aspect occasion on the Technical College on the eve of the MSC. “I hate war.” Requested about current cuts to world well being, he replied: “Even funding, to be honest, is not the issue. It’s how the world actually prioritizes its issues. For instance the world as we speak is now spending $2.43 trillion on defense. That’s too much.”
It was a uncommon dissent. On the MSC, few individuals publicly questioned whether or not rising navy budgets would make Europe safer. After the German election in late February anointed him as the subsequent doubtless chancellor, Merz has pushed to cross a constitutional modification that may enable the federal government to lift its borrowing restrict in an effort to dramatically improve navy spending earlier than an inflow of latest parliamentarians from each the leftist Die Linke and the AfD can block such a measure. After the convention, the UK additionally introduced it could lower international assist to fund protection.
However in closed-door conferences analysts doubted a few of these spending plans, calling for extra tailor-made methods like scaling up rising protection expertise corporations. The issue was not simply that Europe depends on nations just like the US for particular weapons, similar to Patriot air protection missiles, but in addition that it lacked a imaginative and prescient for utilizing new expertise that different nations—amongst them the US, China, Russia, Israel, and Ukraine—had been racing to develop. The AI protection market is booming—in 2024 it was valued at $4.956 billion, with development projected at 30 p.c by 2029, or $18.558 billion. Within the months previous the MSC, highly effective US tech firms like Google dropped “do no harm” commitments that they might not use AI to develop bombs or surveillance. European firms, nevertheless, have principally been absent from this acceleration towards automated warfare machines.
The Kiev-based journalist Tim Mak—who runs a pair of publications protecting the warfare in Ukraine, The Counteroffensive and CounteroffensivePro—pointed out to me that the way forward for battle may already be glimpsed on the battlefield. It will possibly value as much as $50 million to provide a standard F16 fighter jet, however solely $1,000 for “a pretty decent frontline drone,” he stated. Whereas working fighter jets takes at the very least a 12 months of coaching, “anyone with a PlayStation” can function a small drone. Ukraine and Russia have invested closely in tiny FPVs—the propellors are round 5 inches—in addition to different distant gadgets. A story by Counteroffensive documented how, in December 2024, Ukraine launched a completely drone-led assault in northeastern Ukraine towards Russian forces, which included kamikaze and machine-gun-mounted floor fashions in addition to FPVs, one among which had a mounted assault rifle. (It shared its drone expertise with the insurgent forces who topped the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.) Earlier within the 12 months, an investigation by +972 journal revealed that the Israeli navy had used AI to create kill lists in Gaza with little human oversight. There was no public session on the MSC with expertise and protection firms about how humanitarian legislation may very well be programmed into these new weapons methods.
On the second day of the convention I entered the AmerikaHaus, a sq., four-story constructing with a pearl-gray limestone exterior some ten minutes from the Bayerischer Hof. After World Struggle II the US authorities created AmerikaHäusers throughout Germany, initially as libraries. The Haus was internet hosting an MSC aspect occasion referred to as “Addressing Double Standards”organized by the Membership de Madrid, a company of former democratic presidents and prime ministers. Amongst them had been Danilo Türk, the president of Slovenia from 2007 to 2012; Aminata Touré, the prime minister of Senegal from 2013 to 2014; and Elena Motta, a Guatemalan congressmember.
Touré identified that the UN, the one place the place nations may talk about on an equal foundation, was quickly weakening, partly as a result of western world powers—the US and the UK—had refused to grant equal participation to nations from the worldwide south. “Even the UN is operating like it was in 1955,” she stated. No African nations had been among the many Safety Council’s 5 everlasting members—the US, UK, China, France and Russia—who’ve veto energy over resolutions, together with on battle negotiations, sanctions, and authorizing the usage of power. Many African nations had been turning towards strengthening regional mechanisms primarily based on shared pursuits, such because the African Union, moderately than prioritizing world establishments. Though we had been at a safety convention, Touré felt that nobody was speaking in regards to the root causes of conflicts, which in Africa included excessive injustice and poverty. “Now it’s all about arms.”
Sean Gallup/Getty Photographs
An worker of the Munich Safety Convention unfurling American and Chinese language flags for show, February 15, 2025
Later I discovered Touré taking a brief break from the principle classes within the Politico lounge, adorned with video games of battleship and chess on the aspect tables. I requested her what she considered the MSC. “It seems to be a business,” she replied. A lot of the MSC’s and the Trump administration’s rhetoric struck her as outdated, meant to hide business pursuits.
As if to show her level, shortly after we spoke Republican Senator Lindsey Graham took to the Politico stage to debate Ukraine. “We better make sure that we economically integrate with Ukraine as a trip wire,” he stated, referring to the US financial pursuits there. “If we do a minerals agreement where there are American businesses all over Ukraine, it’s harder to invade.” The trail to peace was in American revenue. “Ukraine has value—literally has value…. These people are sitting on literally a gold mine.”
Graham took credit score for Donald Trump’s so-called plans to finish the Ukraine warfare, saying that he’d proven the US president a map and defined there have been “trillions of dollars” in valuable metals underground. These embrace the nickel and cobalt used for electrical automobiles. It was a style of the extortion that was to comply with—the Trump administration’s demand that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky give the US 50 p.c possession of those uncommon earth minerals as “repayment” for US assist, adopted by contentious negotiations that included a Russia–US assembly with out Ukraine, and culminating in a weird and terrifying press convention on the White Home the place Vance and Trump publicly berated Zelensky. (Trump has appeared to harbor a grudge since his first time period, when Zelensky rebuffed his request to research Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.)
On the finish of the session Graham reminisced about an earlier period: he missed John McCain and Joe Lieberman, with whom he used to come back to Munich. “I’m the last amigo,” Graham stated, “but my goal is to create an army of amigos.” It was McCain who launched Graham to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, of whom he spoke fondly. “Then you had the Khashoggi thing—horrible.” He paused, just for a second. “But things are changing. Women are driving.”
A pal texted me that Yanis Varoufakis, the previous Greek finance minister who cofounded a progressive pan-European motion referred to as DiEM25, was about to handle an anti-NATO protest referred to as the Munich Peace Rally. I raced out of the safe zone to get to the demonstration. The metallic clapping of drums introduced the arrival brigade of some hundred individuals—some 2,500 had turned out throughout town in three demonstrations.
“By allowing international law to die in Palestine, they’ve killed international law everywhere, in Germany as well,” Varoufakis shouted from the stage. “For international law to mean anything, it must be applied to everyone, because if it doesn’t apply to everyone, it doesn’t apply to anyone.” Earlier that day I had attended a press briefing with Philippe Lazzarini, the top of UNRWA, the UN company that helps Palestinian refugees, within the gleaming MSC press middle, housed in a former financial institution. About fifteen individuals had been there. 200 and seventy-three of his workers had been killed in Gaza. After a focused misinformation marketing campaign by the Israeli authorities, UNRWA had misplaced most of its funding. His workforce’s lives had been nonetheless in danger. The company was functioning, he stated, “hand to mouth.”
Towards the tip of the day, after a very powerful friends had already left Munich, the organizers started to let journalists into the Bayerischer Hof, though nonetheless accompanied by minders. We filed right into a dialogue on “(C)overt Custodians: Intelligence for the 21st Century” as individuals grabbed free wine. Afterward we hoped to talk with friends, however the MSC handlers instructed us they had been off obligation—we needed to go away instantly. I missed Jessa, who had been assigned elsewhere.
As I left the constructing and wandered across the safe perimeter, Senator Tim Kaine headed towards the Hof along with his workers. Some thirty minutes later I glimpsed the identical press minders who had compelled us out at a packed get together contained in the LiteraturHaus, the place principally white and European-looking attendees drank and performed foosball. The outgoing head of the MSC, Christoph Heusgen, was there, and I heard that John Kerry had handed via. Males wore completely different colours of navy uniforms and emitted heavy cologne. The wood stairs resulting in and from the reception had been sticky with spilled beer.
