Munich In the fall of 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The Berlin Wall had been erected a year earlier, cementing the division of Germany and Europe for another 30 years.
This was the strategic background against which Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, who as a young officer had belonged to the circle of conspirators surrounding Graf Stauffenberg, decided to set up an annual high-level German-American discussion group in Munich. The goal: What needs to happen to effectively deter Moscow and prevent another war in Europe?
That was the initiative for founding the Munich Security Conference, which started under the name Wehrkundetagung in 1963 and would actually celebrate its 60th birthday in the coming days. But since the 1991 conference had to be canceled once because of the Gulf War, the correct anniversary will not take place until 2024.
Kleist was an independent gentleman with a stern look. For almost 35 years he led the conference himself. He alone decided who was invited and who was not. He counted Helmut Kohl among his friends, as did Manfred Wörner, Franz Josef Strauss and Helmut Schmidt, who, like Henry Kissinger, was among his very first guests.
When I was allowed to take over the scepter from Horst Teltschik in 2008, Kleist gave me the harsh advice: As a former civil servant, don’t let yourself be impressed by those in Berlin. Invite only those who are worthy, and that’s not many.
A lot has changed since 2008
Under Horst Teltschik, the priorities of the conference increasingly shifted away from the military-dominated deliberations of the Cold War towards more global issues. In 2001, for example, the motto of the conference was ‘Euro-Atlantic Partnership and Global Challenges’. Finally, in 2007, Teltschik persuaded President Putin to make his only appearance to date in Munich.
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Many observers now see Putin’s 2007 speech as the start of the revisionist phase of Russian foreign policy, a warning that was unfortunately not taken seriously enough in the West at the time. During these years, the Munich Security Conference began to develop into a temperature sensor for the current global political crisis.
A lot has changed since 2008: The German happiness of being surrounded only by friends since 1990 has changed in the face of the brutal Russian aggression against Ukraine – since 2014, not just since 2022! – just as dissolved as our hope for a sustainable and rule-based European, even global peace order. A deeply depressing development for me personally and for my entire generation of diplomats and foreign policy experts. Were all our efforts at reconciliation, relaxation and balance in vain?
In the 14 years that I have been able to lead the MSC since 2008, one crisis has followed the other – from the war in Georgia in 2008 to the financial and euro crisis to the Syrian war to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the migration crisis of 2016. By Donald Trump and the NATO crisis he triggered, to the traumatic end of the intervention in Afghanistan, to the large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine a year ago.
First conference under Heusgen’s direction
The associated political and economic upheavals have given the Munich Security Conference a great opportunity to grow. Already in 2009 we organized a first additional conference event in Washington DC, which has since been followed by dozens of conferences in many capitals of the world – from Beijing to New Delhi and Cairo to Moscow, Paris, Vienna, Brussels and Singapore.
This was accompanied by a massive increase in personnel: I started in 2008 with a single part-time employee. Today, the Munich Security Conference is a non-profit limited company, belongs to the foundation I set up several years ago, and has around 70 permanent employees in Munich and Berlin.
Both the federal government and Bavaria have made endowments and thus made a significant contribution to ensuring that the MSC’s ability to withstand crises and its independence is guaranteed in the long term. The annual budget of more than ten million euros is borne by numerous partners and sponsors, including the Bosch Foundation as well as large German and foreign companies.
n For the 2022 conference, the Promenadenplatz in Munich was cordoned off.
(Photo: imago images/Thomas Vonier)
In addition to conference management, a second mainstay has emerged: a growing think tank department that produces, among other things, the highly acclaimed annual Munich Security Report. In the foreword to our “Zeitenwende” report, with which this term entered the political debate, I pointed out the “erosion of almost all fundamental certainties of German foreign policy” as early as autumn 2020.
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The 2023 conference will be the first for which Christoph Heusgen, my successor in the conference leadership, is now responsible. 40 heads of state and government and around 100 ministers and other high-ranking international government officials are expected. There are also numerous experts, business leaders and parliamentarians – one third of the 100 American senators alone will arrive in Munich.
Hope for impetus for an end to the war in Ukraine
What is the conference’s recipe for success? First, maintaining our independence in the spirit of Ewald von Kleist. No partner, no sponsor, no government institution may contribute more than about ten percent to the budget. Secondly, our efforts to define the concept of security as broadly as possible. Our agenda has long included climate security as well as global health policy and international energy security policy.
Third, our adherence to transatlantic and European policy priorities while increasing the involvement of global actors such as China, India or other partners of the Global South, including the Middle East and Africa.
The 2023 conference will be the first for which Christoph Heusgen, my successor in the conference leadership, is now responsible.
(Photo: dpa)
Unfortunately, the 2023 conference will also be the first to take place during a war being waged by a nuclear power in Europe. A year ago I was able to personally welcome President Zelensky – four days after his MSC appearance the Russian offensive broke out. It is my hope and that of the entire MSC team that the conference weekend will provide impetus and initiatives that can pave the way to an early end to the war.
Because if, as we hope, Ukraine can hold its ground successfully, Kyiv and its partners will face the next big design challenge, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger: to exercise restraint in the face of victory.
The author was State Secretary in the Federal Foreign Office and chaired the Munich Security Conference (MSC) from 2008 to 2022. He is now President of the MSC Board of Trustees.
More: Christoph Heusgen on the Ukraine war: “Ultimately, there is only a solution with the end of the Putin regime”