13 Feb, 2026 13:13

The liberal order’s last stand at Munich: Live updates

At this year’s conference, the Western establishment is taking on Russia and Donald Trump

The most ardent defenders of the Western “rules-based international order” are meeting at the Munich Security Conference on Friday and Saturday. This year the focus isn’t just on Russia; it’s also on US President Donald Trump and the “populist” threat in Europe’s own backyard.

Friday’s events kick off with an address by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who’s currently pressing the EU leadership to circumvent their own rules to save his flagging economy and rearmament program. EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas then heads a panel on “the international order between reform and destruction,” right as France and Italy want her sidelined in any potential negotiations with Russia.

After discussions on trade, maritime security, and climate change, Moldovan President Maia Sandu takes part in a panel on “hybrid warfare,” less than two weeks after it emerged that the EU – and not Russia – interfered in the 2024 election that brought her to power.

In a report published earlier this month, Munich Security Conference Foundation President Wolfgang Ischinger stated that “the United States’ evolving view of the international order” is the most important issue to be debated this weekend. Populists like Trump, he argued, have taken a “wrecking ball” to the post-WWII liberal order, and America’s former allies need to respond to this threat.

To that end, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a ‘democratic socialist’, will feature on a panel about the “rise of populism,” while US Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal – both advocates for maximum American involvement in the Ukraine conflict – with discuss “the state of Russia.” Graham has previously called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

13 February 2026
16:21 GMT
In a panel on climate change, California Governor Gavin Newsom goes off on a rant about Trump, reassuring the Europeans that “he’ll be gone in three years.”
“Never in the history of the United States of America has there been a more destructive president than the current occupant in the White House in Washington DC,” he declares, accusing Trump of “trying to recreate the 19th Century.”
Even when the headline discussions of the conference examine the prospect of an Western order without the US, American partisan politics somehow find a way in.
16:05 GMT
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Defense Minister Johann Wadephul share a very enthusiastic greeting in Munich.
Ursula von der Leyen and Johann Wadephul greet each other at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 13, 2026 © Getty Images / Johannes Simon
Flashbacks to the good old days:
15:42 GMT
Meanwhile, in a smaller session focused on trade, Finnish President Alexander Stubb is asked by a Ukrainian journalist “how to sort Russia out.”
“I think you’re winning this war,” he replies, before citing Kiev’s own inflated Russian casualty figures as proof. “Just keep on doing what you’re doing, and at the end of the day, you will prevail and win this war,” he reiterates.
Reality hasn’t reached everyone in Munich yet.
15:11 GMT
If you’re just joining us, Merz has already pronounced the “rules-based international order” dead and called for a more centralized and militarized Europe, while Kallas has offered a lightweight defense of the old world order.
It’s worth taking a look back to 2007, when Russian President Vladimir Putin tore apart the lies and contradictions at the heart of the liberal order, and predicted exactly where it would lead.
At the end of the day, Putin warned, the so-called rules-based order “is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign.” It is a world, he argued, that “not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.”
15:01 GMT
Asked who will hold Israel accountable for 1,500 violations of the Gaza ceasefire, Kallas says “nobody should be above the law,” and that in a system of international rules “if you are breaching these rules, you should be held accountable.”
Another classic piece of feelgood diplomacy from Kallas, with no actual plan to follow through.
14:54 GMT
Waltz argues for American power as a force for good. He says the US operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was celebrated across Latin America, and that Trump sidestepped UN deadlock by bypassing the organization with his Gaza ‘Board of Peace’
Asked whether Trump believes in a system “where there are rules that would constrain the United States,” he deflects. “NATO is stronger because of our leadership,” he says. “The UN will be stronger at the end of this.”
14:42 GMT
Waltz brought gifts: light blue ‘Make the UN Great Again’ hats. “Otherwise known as MUNGA,” he says as Kallas takes the souvenir.
14:37 GMT
Back in the conference room, Kallas is arguing with US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz. She says Europe contributes its fair share to the UN and NATO, and “when America goes to wars, then a lot of us go with you and we lose our people on the way.”
Waltz says that “the American people have underwritten” the post-WWII order and spends more money on propping up this system than “more than 180 countries combined.”
“When I go to people in Indiana and Georgia and North Florida that I represented…I have to look at them honestly and say it’s being well spent, and it’s not,” he adds.
14:28 GMT
Despite all the talk of realpolitik, there’s no better illustration of the Munich Security Conference Foundation’s world view than this: Iranian officials have been banned from attending the conference, while ‘crown prince’ Reza Pahlavi has arrived in Munich to meet with US senators.
Reza Pahlavi arrives at the Munich Security Conference, February 13, 2026
Pahlavi is the son of the US-backed Shah, who was deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Pahlavi has lived outside Washington DC for 40 years, where he encourages regime change in Tehran from the comfort of his home.
His presence in Munich is entirely symbolic. While Pahlavi has declared his readiness to rule Iran in the event of a successful US regime change operation, Trump has publicly said that Iranians likely wouldn’t “accept his leadership.”
14:17 GMT
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister is serving up some reality to the Europeans. He says that “many of us” outside the US and Europe “have seen the breakdown” of the “rules-based order” long before it was discussed in Munich.
He says the EU’s attachment to “symbolism, rather than realities on the ground,” has historically made it more difficult to work with the Europeans on resolving conflicts. Now, “the most ardent supporters of the old system” are willing to speak realistically, he adds.

13 February 2026
13:19 GMT
“The international order based on rights and rules is currently being destroyed,” Merz claims. “This order…no longer exists.”
The German chancellor opens with language lifted straight out of Ischinger’s report, and follows its recommendations to the letter: “The most important thing is to turn the switch in our minds” and tap into Europe’s “military potential.” Merz then promises to make the German armed forces “the strongest conventional army in Europe.”
Turning these words into reality might be a little more complicated. The German economy has flatlined without Russian energy imports, debt-financed defense spending is one of the few mechanisms keeping it out of the red, and Bundeswehr stocks are so depleted from arming Ukraine that Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced yesterday that Berlin can only donate five PAC-3 missiles for Ukraine’s Patriot air defense systems.
13:32 GMT

Read more
Freedom of speech, NATO states’ role in their own defense, migration crisis: Key takeaways from Vance’s Munich address

US Vice President JD Vance’s speech at last year’s conference is still playing on repeat in Europe. Merz defends the EU censorship policies that Vance targeted last year, saying “the MAGA culture battle in the US” is not Europe’s problem, and “freedom of speech here ends when the words spoken are against human dignity and our basic law.”
Merz’ relationship with the White House is often schizophrenic. The German chancellor has clashed with his American counterparts on trade, climate change, and so-called ‘hate speech’ laws. However, Merz has rejected French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for EU states to prioritize European-made weapons and products in public procurement, and supports continued use of American tech by European governments.
13:34 GMT

Read more
Brussels’ dependency dilemma: The EU is a victim of its own energy arrogance

“No-one forced us into this excessive dependency on the United States in which we have found ourselves,” Merz admits, adding: “this dependency was self-inflicted.”
He’s talking about reliance on the US for military protection, but his admission could equally apply to energy. EU leaders have spent four years justifying soaring energy costs and rapid deindustrialization as the price of “freedom” from dependency on Russian gas and oil imports. However, the bloc has simply swapped one dependency for another, and has left itself at the mercy of Washington by switching to American liquefied natural gas.
Merz says the Europeans will “now cast off this state” of dependence “as soon as we can.” If he had listened to his predecessors, as RT reported earlier this month, this entire situation could have been avoided.
13:55 GMT
Merz’ schizophrenic tone continues when the discussion turns to Russia. One one hand “it makes sense to talk” to Moscow, he says, adding that “we are willing to talk.”
On the other, he says that the war will “only end when Russia is at least economically, and potentially militarily, exhausted,” and attacks Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for visiting Moscow and “achieving nothing.”
Demanding talks while openly calling for the military and economic defeat of Russia is exactly why – as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month – “reaching an agreement with the current generation of European leaders will most likely be impossible.”
14:04 GMT
The EU’s Kallas is now taking part in a debate on “big power politics,” as The Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes – who is moderating – puts it.
It’s hard not to overstate how unqualified Kallas is here. The EU’s diplomatic chief famously didn’t know that China and Russia participated in World War II, and insisted that no foreign power has ever attacked Russia “in the last 100 years.”
14:17 GMT
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister is serving up some reality to the Europeans. He says that “many of us” outside the US and Europe “have seen the breakdown” of the “rules-based order” long before it was discussed in Munich.
He says the EU’s attachment to “symbolism, rather than realities on the ground,” has historically made it more difficult to work with the Europeans on resolving conflicts. Now, “the most ardent supporters of the old system” are willing to speak realistically, he adds.
14:28 GMT
Despite all the talk of realpolitik, there’s no better illustration of the Munich Security Conference Foundation’s world view than this: Iranian officials have been banned from attending the conference, while ‘crown prince’ Reza Pahlavi has arrived in Munich to meet with US senators.
Reza Pahlavi arrives at the Munich Security Conference, February 13, 2026
Pahlavi is the son of the US-backed Shah, who was deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Pahlavi has lived outside Washington DC for 40 years, where he encourages regime change in Tehran from the comfort of his home.
His presence in Munich is entirely symbolic. While Pahlavi has declared his readiness to rule Iran in the event of a successful US regime change operation, Trump has publicly said that Iranians likely wouldn’t “accept his leadership.”
14:37 GMT
Back in the conference room, Kallas is arguing with US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz. She says Europe contributes its fair share to the UN and NATO, and “when America goes to wars, then a lot of us go with you and we lose our people on the way.”
Waltz says that “the American people have underwritten” the post-WWII order and spends more money on propping up this system than “more than 180 countries combined.”
“When I go to people in Indiana and Georgia and North Florida that I represented…I have to look at them honestly and say it’s being well spent, and it’s not,” he adds.
14:42 GMT
Waltz brought gifts: light blue ‘Make the UN Great Again’ hats. “Otherwise known as MUNGA,” he says as Kallas takes the souvenir.
14:54 GMT
Waltz argues for American power as a force for good. He says the US operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was celebrated across Latin America, and that Trump sidestepped UN deadlock by bypassing the organization with his Gaza ‘Board of Peace’
Asked whether Trump believes in a system “where there are rules that would constrain the United States,” he deflects. “NATO is stronger because of our leadership,” he says. “The UN will be stronger at the end of this.”