Munich 2020 Security Conference, another missed opportunity
Known as the Munich Security Conference, it is an annual event initiated by Germany more than 50 years ago (1963), whose slogan is “Peace through Dialogue”. It was founded by Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin as a non-profit discussion forum, which advocated preventing possible military conflicts in the future; to this end, it brings together important political leaders and security policy experts.
It is a forum in which participants take the opportunity to discuss - apart from the large international organisations - all kinds of pressing problems that could endanger security, mainly those that most concern or threaten the Western world at any given time.
Over time and even more recently, it has become the most important independent security forum in the world for the exchange of views by those responsible for the study and analysis of problems and threats as well as those who make decisions regarding individual or collective policies concerning international security.
It is, however, an event that has no fixed format or standard of attendance; in which presidents, prime ministers, ministers, other high representatives of the most important countries of the West and experts or associations on security of an official or independent nature share the table and panel discussion or debate.
Although it is a global event and the conclusions reached are not obligatory to be complied with or followed up, Latin America and Africa are off the agenda and the guests at the event mainly belong to European countries and the United States (USA), although China, India, Iran, Japan and Russia are taking on, directly or indirectly, an increasingly important role in these meetings.
On this occasion, more than 400 representatives (including 35 prime ministers and as many ministers of high and medium level of decision and representation) have met in the city that gives its name to the Conference between 14 and 16 February, despite the fact that the climate was not very conducive to reaching major agreements and the threats of the coronavirus - a subject that also entered, without being foreseen in the discussions - capable of aborting certain mass meetings attended by people from different continents.
Spain, in spite of being a frankly interesting forum, tends to give little importance to it and therefore, every year it goes almost unnoticed even by the main national security and defence bodies and, consequently, our representation does not go beyond the level of foreign and/or defence ministers.
Their interest derives from the updated and hot topics to be covered, the way in which their programmes are drawn up and prepared, the importance of most of the issues analysed and the degree of freedom with which these topics are brought up and dealt with; as well as the lack of restrictions when it comes to exposing and blaming people or responsibilities, as their treatment, presentation and discussion are less restricted and apparently not as important as they could be in organisations such as the UN, NATO, the OSCE and other smaller international security forums.
It is therefore a forum where numerous leaders and experts come together to debate with the intention of joining forces to identify and seek alternatives or solutions to the main security challenges facing international society. To this end, one of the characteristics that gives weight to the conference is that before it is held, the organisers publish what is known as the “Munich Security Report”; a very important and well prepared document that supports knowledge of the agenda and sets out the lines of action that will follow the discussions throughout the meeting.
This year's report has been particularly impressive from the moment it was given its title and because of the clarity and roughness with which its arguments are set out and presented both in the document itself and in the opening conference by Wolfgang Ischinger, an expert German ambassador and, at the same time, the chairman of the conference.
This year's document, entitled “de-Westernization” (in English, Westlessness), “states that the West as we know it today is being questioned both within and outside its borders. All this in a context of the relative rise of the non-Western world, with global challenges and crises that would require an agreed response in the wake of the accumulation of so many problems. In this case and as a summary, it describes a situation on the verge of the perfect storm”1.
In the same document and reference, it is stated that the internal fractures in the West are due to the rise and constant growth of anti-liberal and nationalist movements, of which we unfortunately know and suffer well in Spain, which attack or put in question the traditional democratic values on which, without any kind of objection, our coexistence and prosperity have been based throughout the last 70 years.
"Heterogeneous revisionist movements that are gradually turning the West into a community in which its ethnic, cultural and religious criteria are frankly threatened. It offers the vision of a besieged civilization that leads, irremediably, to a call for self-defense, materialized in walls and borders, the rejection of refugees, but also in opposition to "political correctness" and the gender perspective, among other issues. The defenders of an open and liberal West, for the time being, seem unable to find an adequate response to the anti-liberal challenge".
The document delves into very interesting but also bleak aspects by showing that "the crisis that the West is experiencing, however, is not limited to its own. We only have to look at the current conflicts everywhere. They show the lack of commitment or the fatigue of Western countries, given that instead of getting directly involved, they have generally opted for alternative strategies, such as training missions, helping others to look after their own security or supporting local actors with defensive weapons.
Western countries seem to have ceded the initiative to deal with the most violent conflicts to other players. But, while Western politicians repeat the mantra that there are no military solutions to political conflicts, other players nevertheless implement such solutions, without concern for legal or ethical considerations”.
It is precisely in this concept that the roles that the new-old players are playing lately appear more clearly; apart from Putin's ever-present Russia and others no less important such as China and even Turkey, North Korea and Iran that appear in more localised conflicts.
The aforementioned report or discussion paper is based on the World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report 2020, which clearly identifies the ten main risks and threats of the moment. This document, which I encourage you to read2 slowly for its clarity and importance, and from which I take the liberty of extracting part (two paragraphs) of its prologue, which I quote verbatim:
“Powerful economic, demographic and technological forces are shaping a new balance of power. The result is an unstable geopolitical landscape, in which states see more and more opportunities and challenges through a one-sided lens. What was once given with respect to alliance structures and multilateral systems no longer holds when states question the value of long-standing frameworks, adopt more nationalistic positions in pursuit of individual agendas, and weigh up the possible geopolitical consequences of economic decoupling.
Beyond the risk of conflict, if stakeholders focus on immediate geostrategic advantage and do not re-imagine or adapt coordination mechanisms during this volatile period, opportunities for action on key priorities will be lost”.
In spite of this great and at the same time worrying presentation and staging of the great world challenges and the already almost irremediable drift of our individual and collective security; the conference itself, as usual, focused again on US-sponsored clashes, which always try to lead and upset more than one.
Confrontations for which, repeatedly, it is a matter of seeking a fierce common enemy and fostering the corresponding alliances to fight him with the pretension of joining all kinds of efforts among natural allies and in those others who, not being so, try to stand out in the international arena or may feel directly or indirectly threatened.
If last year, the enemy to be beaten was Russia for the construction of its pipelines to directly supply Europe with oil derivatives and the possibility of being able to use them as a tool of control and strong pressure on the Old Continent3 ; This year, the American efforts have been focused on reporting the dangers and looking for ways to fight against "the evil" Chinese attempt to manage our lives and therefore, annul the defence capabilities of our security systems by incorporating 5G technology through Huawei mobiles and their communication and control systems that, without a doubt, can penetrate everything around us.
This subject was introduced personally by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who had no problem in showing his discontent with the passivity and more than patent neutrality with which Europe is dealing with this subject of such serious importance from his point of view. To this end, he said “The enemy is China” and called for the exclusion of the aforementioned telephone company from the development of 5G networks in Europe.
He did not hesitate to accuse it of being “a Trojan horse of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese intelligence, who through that company will take over the data of all users of the European 5G network”. At his side, Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, corroborated and sharpened the speech of his government colleague and suggested that if Europe does not exclude Huawei it will be putting NATO in danger.
Views that not only came from the party in the US government, but were also shared by Nancy Pelosi; who despite belonging to the opposition and having led the movement in the House of Representatives for the celebration of the failed attempt to impeach Trump, corroborated what the two ministers said and added that “China is seeking to export its digital autocracy through its telecommunications giant Huawei”.
These accusations were quickly denied by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who, in a very parsimonious manner and without much fanfare or fuss, referred to the good relations between his country and Europe. Relations, which as such have never existed except in the commercial aspects, although, for the moment, China is not directly threatening Europe either and is rather trying to expand and consolidate itself in its surroundings and areas of interest and influence of greater or lesser radius of action, where, on occasions, they clearly clash with American interests, which may partially explain the animosities and other types of clashes between the two leading world economic powers.
As for Germany -which, as the host nation, is always very active in participating in any security forum to keep its information up to date on what is happening in most corners of the world and a certain degree of control over possible initiatives to be adopted- this year, for reasons that are not very clear, Chancellor Merkel did not attend the forum; This has aroused -in the corridors of the hallway- quite a few misgivings and many questions on various points, highlighting those referring to her future internal role and in the EU, mainly due to the progressive decline of her party, the CDU, and on the contrary, the rise of the far-right party, although it defines itself as liberal, Alternative for Germany (AfD)4, which has been eating away at the electorate, bringing it closer in terms of results and conditioning the governability of Germany, as a whole or at the local and regional level5.
France, with the incombustible Macron at its head, has been taking every possible opportunity to despise others, to change horses in the middle of the race or fellow adventurers and to assert its capabilities by considering subjectively that, simply because it is the only EU country with nuclear capability, it should be granted the privilege and the right to be the one to lead and direct defence initiatives within the Union itself; because in its own opinion - expressed the day before the last NATO Summit in London – “NATO is brain dead”.
On this occasion, and perhaps due to Merkel's non-attendance at the meeting, she has once again brought out her well-known repertoire, with even more brazenness and stridency, knowing that it would not be adequately answered by any of the European allies, and she has encouraged the recovery of the old and hackneyed concept of the Franco-German Axis, calling into question the capacity and commitment of the Germans for its definitive implementation.
He even went so far as to speak of the historical error' that would result in the break-up of the aforementioned axis, since without it, Europe will be unable to do anything. He did not speak of “frustration” at Germany's failure to respond to his proposals for deep reform of the EU, but of genuine “impatience”.
He came to add to the previously announced prediction or testimony of the decline of the West, of multilateralism and of the change in rules that the irruption on the international chessboard of both China and Russia itself in search of recognition and some world leadership implies. Moreover, he announced that Europe will only be able to guarantee its sovereignty in the medium and long term if it provides itself with its own adequate instruments for its defence. “The key to Europe's defence is in Europe and not in transatlantic relations”, he stressed. On this occasion he did not repeat his famous phrase about the brain death of NATO; a phrase that, as will be remembered, bothered Trump so much at the time, but he did call for more Europe.
Statements that, because of their previous and recent insistence and stridency, were more than expected; which explains why both NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an effort to counteract them even earlier and why both of them claimed the role of the Alliance in world stability. “NATO and the EU are two sides of the same coin. If we weaken NATO we weaken Europe”, Stoltenberg said emphatically in his speech.
The complexity and the growing number of conflicting interests and important actors in the already too long and again highly complex Syrian conflict6; the degree of American involvement or not in the Middle East; the direct or indirect Russian interventions in the electoral processes of many Western countries and the very dangerous recent events, mainly in Iran and Iraq, have had their influence and have been given considerable time at this year's meeting in Munich. However, the issue of pacification and the arms embargo on Libya was not a topic of interest for the conference, perhaps because it was the subject of a parallel and simultaneous conference on the subject in the so-called Berlin Initiative'7.
In reference to the points that were addressed, Pompeo himself reiterated his country's commitment to NATO and to multilateralism. “I have heard statements questioning the commitment of the United States to multilateralism and to the very idea of the International Community (IC). I heard the last one yesterday, at this conference”, said Pompeo in reference to the opening speech of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. “These statements do not reflect reality”, said the American, who cited as examples of international commitments the defense of Ukraine's sovereignty, the fight against the terrorist group of the self-styled Islamic State, the assassination of its leader, Abu Bakr Bagdadi, as well as that of General, ideologist, strategist and commander of the Iranian Quds, Qasem Soleimani.
These last words prompted the always enigmatic Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, a regular guest in Munich, to respond appropriately with certain fairly accurate and highly poisoned darts. “None of those actions he mentions have resolved the conflict in Iraq and Syria”, he reminded him. He added: “We are in a world that is multipolar from a military, political, technological or economic point of view, and so it is normal that everyone should seek their own sphere of influence, but there is only talk of countering the threat from China and Russia, together or separately”.
In his opinion, the world is somewhat more complex than that, which is why President Vladimir Putin has proposed a summit of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. The summit, of which not much is known yet, is a very important one.
Macron, for his part, did not want to miss the opportunity to make a point of the EU's threats and relations with Russia and, before Lavrov's aforementioned intervention, accused Russia of holding back progress in the UN Security Council and of persisting in its destabilising role in other countries' election campaigns.
However, in order to balance his intervention, to mark differences with the United States and not to close definitively all the doors to diplomacy and to any possible and hypothetical understanding, he opened up the possibility of improving relations with Russia, which have been peppered with the bitterness of many sanctions since the annexation of the Crimea by him some years ago. “Sanctions on Russia have changed absolutely nothing. I'm not proposing to lift them, I'm just noting”, said Macron, who, unlike Trump and his advisors, sees no serious and less imminent danger in what has been defined as Russian rearmament because “financially it is unsustainable” and neither does he foresee a lasting alliance between Moscow and Beijing because “Chinese hegemony is not compatible with Russian pride”.
Spain's participation in Munich was led by the recently inaugurated Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, who, perhaps because of her latest experiences and greater preparation in cooperation and trade exchange, led her to join the panel - apparently fitted as a shoehorn - on the Future of International Trade and its Implications for Security, in which she left a more than ambiguous message about Spain's idea regarding the central theme of the conference.
As is usual in socialist messages, his was very long in contrast to the null or almost null content and depth as reflected in the short official statement of the Spanish government: “The minister has stressed at the Munich Security Conference Spain's commitment to international trade and multilateralism as the only way to resolve international tensions”. As a sign of what has been said and of the uncertainties sown by Spain in these difficult times, I encourage you to read the full official communiqué on the page with this reference8.
It is necessary to bear in mind the difficulty of appearing or selling a great and effective commitment on the part of Spain in collective security, since its declaration coincided, more or less in time, with Spain's official decision not to involve itself in military missions that involve a certain degree of risk, together with France in EU missions, with which our country is increasingly lagging behind and being left behind internationally; not only in the fulfilment of its acquired obligations (spending in NATO), but also in its predisposition to have our participation in missions that imply a certain degree of strong commitment, risk and fatigue together with other EU countries, which leads us, irremissibly, to an imminent and even shameful postponement and lack of consideration, both in Europe and in other types of alliances9.
By way of summary and as a final conclusion, it can be assured that from the previous document and the opening moment, this year's conference, despite having very well identified the progressive trends, deformations, errors and serious defects into which the IC as a whole is falling unstoppably, has been marked and peppered by the tensions derived from the discrepancies between Europe and the USA over the type of conflicts to be faced and in the definition of the active and passive subjects in them that the IC itself must face or correct.
Both blocs disagree enormously on the state of health of the Transatlantic Alliance and, it has become very clear and evident, that the internal tensions in Europe have been much deeper and more hurtful after Brexit, the plummeting of Merkel's influence, the possible problems for her succession and the excess of chauvinism shown by an emboldened Macron who, on this occasion, has not hesitated to launch an even greater order than in his recent interventions in other forums of equal or superior importance.
At the same time, countries like Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, once the object of some interest and importance, have been frankly and totally irrelevant, and all this has produced a sense of emptiness and European orphanhood that is very difficult to recover.
Russia and China have taken advantage of these moments of evident weakness and lack of coordination and control among the traditional Western partners to impose their wedges, to release all kinds of subliminal or direct messages and to evaluate both the reactions and the real resulting situation with a view to a near future scenario.
Dark clouds are gathering over the IC and the short and medium term forecasts are not at all promising due to moral deformation, loss of values and lack of interest in effort, joint work and collective security; giving the impression that just as the ostrich is said to hide its head, in order not to face danger with courage instead of defending itself against it, we are opting for a kind of self-poisoning that will lead to individual suicide or death; a situation that is becoming collective by leaps and bounds.
This is a moment and circumstance that, with a high degree of probability, could lead to some external force, taking advantage of a more than announced upcoming economic crisis, managing or dominating our current and future wills without using drastic or very bloody means to achieve it.
The extension of the field of application of data collection, creation of trends and deviations; as well as, information security and its vulnerabilities may be the weapons of the future. Weapons that will not need expensive platforms or large military machines to achieve their broad objectives.
From my point of view, it is a moment of great sadness to see our individual and collective blindness and lack of openness in analysing, delving into and properly applying the tools available to us in such important matters as security. Tools, which this Conference has provided long before its materialization.
Sadness, which is aggravated by the fact that, once again, time and intellectual and economic efforts have been lost in moments of gravity, where it is increasingly difficult to find authentic experts and analysts of substance who are capable of opening the eyes of one-eyed and amateur clowns who at this moment act as political leaders and are followed closely by authentic armies of undocumented citizens.
All the more so, in the circumstances and moments in which time is increasingly scarce. At the same time it is necessary to adopt the necessary reactions that could lead us to change our course and derive from the more than probable irremediable events.
Notes
1- https://www.politicaexterior.com/actualidad/retos-seguridad-munich-2020/
2 - http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-report-2020/chapter-one-risks-landscape/?doing_wp_cron=1581934270.24049496650695800781252-
3 And more specifically, to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a pharaonic project of 11 billion dollars that from 2021 will make 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas flow per year to Germany, despite the sanctions legislated by Donald Trump against the companies involved. https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-pompeo-urge-europa-escoger-entre-eeuu-y-china-202002151405_noticia.html
4 - Party that was born in 2013 as a party "officially disassociated from the extreme right" and closer to the liberals. Since 2015, thanks to its stance against the massive influx of refugees into Germany in the context of the migration crisis in Europe, AfD has experienced a massive increase in popular support at both federal and state level. It has a Eurosceptic ideology, which rejects the euro and the bailouts of peripheral countries, and calls for the return of the Deutsche Mark after an orderly dissolution of the Eurozone.
5- https://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2020/02/06/alemania-el-presidente-regional-votado-por-la-ultraderecha-renuncio-y-habra-nuevas-elecciones-en-thuringia/
6- Some 900,000 people have recently been displaced by the upsurge in fighting.
7- https://www.dw.com/es/iniciativa-de-paz-de-berl%C3%ADn-para-libia-recibe-respaldo-en-conferencia-de-seguridad-de-m%C3%BAnich/a-52398188
8 https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/serviciosdeprensa/notasprensa/exteriores/Paginas/2020/150220munich.aspx
9 https://www.larazon.es/espana/20200217/dvt65pbvi5bkzdjbeoohxbuvie.html?