No other topic dominated the run-up to the 58th Munich Security Conference, which begins this Friday, as much as the crisis in Eastern Europe provoked by Russia. The ever-increasing risk of war in recent weeks has also convinced us that there is an urgent need for a physical meeting of the security community again this year. The Russian troop deployment on the Ukrainian border represents one of the most urgent and worrying current security developments and will therefore rightly be of central importance in the discussions at the security conference – both public and private.
However, the situation in Eastern Europe is not the only one that we are currently viewing with great concern. The danger also grows below the threshold of interstate wars. Violent conflicts have increased significantly. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more people are fleeing than ever before. And the average duration of humanitarian crises has increased from two to seven years over the past quarter century, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The wave of crises and conflicts that has piled up in recent years is now threatening to overwhelm us. The Covid-19 pandemic – which has gripped the world for two years now – has further amplified these troubling undercurrents. It has also shown how strongly the many crises are now mutually increasing. The public health emergency caused by the coronavirus is accompanied by numerous subsequent pandemics, including a pandemic of hunger, a pandemic of poverty and a pandemic of authoritarianism.
Poverty has been growing again worldwide for a long time
Successes on the way to realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that were believed to be secure for a long time are now seriously threatened by this polypandemic. According to the latest information from World Bank President David Malpass, the development progress of the past 15 years has already been destroyed. For the first time in a long time, poverty is growing again worldwide. That is why the military aggression we are currently experiencing in Eastern Europe must not narrow our perspective.
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We have to keep in mind that the structural causes of violence and instability – in addition to poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and repression – are currently increasing in many places. From them arise the crisis waves of tomorrow. In the face of the rising tide of mutually reinforcing crises, it is not surprising that societies and decision-makers seem increasingly overwhelmed or even helpless. Instead of acting as a breakwater, politics often seems to be swept along by the growing current.
It is permanently in reactive crisis mode, constantly dealing with acute emergencies, refugee situations and humanitarian catastrophes. Meanwhile, their costs are increasing astronomically. All this is not sustainable. While the flood of disasters is not abating, fundamental doubts are growing about the ability of external actors to strengthen the conditions for peace and stability elsewhere in the face of failed or threatened stabilization missions, for example in Mali. After the West’s hasty withdrawal, Afghanistan is also facing a humanitarian catastrophe.
We have to get ahead of the crisis waves
It is becoming increasingly clear that a policy is only sustainable if it manages to stay ahead of the waves of crisis and conflict. The key to this is prevention. Instead of primarily reacting to crises, Germany and its international partners must dare to do more prevention in the future. Prevention is successful when development and security policy pull together. When it comes to identifying structural conflict factors at an early stage and systematically eliminating them, development policy measures play a special role.
Sustainable investment in infrastructure, advocacy for more immunization equity and support in dealing with climate change are just a few of the measures that can already help to cut the breeding ground for future crises and conflicts. Aware of this, the Munich Security Conference, which is now beginning, has prominently placed challenges such as overcoming the polypandemic, the fight against the climate crisis, but also the protection of democracy and the dangers of kleptocracy in a separate topic on its agenda.
Classic security policy instruments continue to play an important role in creating the conditions for peace and stability. In Munich we are therefore discussing the future of stabilization missions as well as the possibilities of reviving conventional and nuclear arms control. Although after the chaotic end of the Afghanistan mission there are rightly great doubts about the possibilities of external actors to set up effective and legitimate state structures in the world, it is worrying if peace and stabilization missions are now fundamentally called into question.
Difficult talks on disarmament issues
Despite the brutal way in which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is currently forcing the West to talk about the future of European security architecture, we want to continue this debate in Munich and use it to push difficult talks about questions of disarmament and improved transparency. In an attempt to restore a modicum of trust, these talks ultimately serve the goal of securing long-term peace.
In the spirit of these principles, it is now important to quickly strengthen all facets of crisis prevention. Our crisis resilience of tomorrow stands and falls with how much we invest in preventive measures today. The investments are worthwhile – also financially. Crisis prevention is significantly more cost-efficient than crisis response. However, turning things around also requires regaining optimism and belief in one’s own abilities. The most recent setbacks in Afghanistan and elsewhere, as well as the multiple setbacks on the road to sustainable development caused by the polypandemic, have put a heavy damper on both.
But the instruments needed to avoid crises, sustainably reduce the structural causes of conflict and promote peaceful coexistence already exist. It is now up to Germany and its international partners to use and further strengthen the instruments – so that we can get back in front of the waves. In the coming days in Munich we want to discuss how this can be achieved.
The authors: Wolfgang Ischinger is the outgoing chairman of the Munich Security Conference. He teaches as Senior Professor for Security Policy and Diplomatic Practice at the Hertie School in Berlin.
Sophie Eisentraut is Head of Research & Publications at the Munich Security Conference and lead author of “Polypandemie”, a special edition of the Munich Security Report on development, fragility and conflict in the Covid-19 era.
More: Ischinger’s successor Christoph Heusgen criticizes the traffic light policy in Ukraine.