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
Graham and Blumenthal are finished, but side discussions have been ongoing. Here’s Reza Pahlavi claiming that “we were successful in pushing the [Iranian] regime back.”
“Are we prepared to die for this cause? Of course we are,” he says. “We don’t have a choice but to fight. We don’t have a choice but to liberate ourselves.”
Pahlavi says “we,” but he hasn’t been in Iran since 1978. He still refers to himself as Iran’s ‘crown prince’, and encourages anti-government riots from his home outside Washington DC.
Zelensky says he and Merz discussed “further military assistance, additional contributions,” and scaling up joint production of drones in a meeting on the sidelines of the conference.
Zelensky is due to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at some point over the weekend. After Trump’s statement in Washington, it looks like the US is going to press him into accepting a peace deal – at the expense of territory claimed by Ukraine – once again.
Back in Washington, Trump says that Zelensky “better get moving,” because “Russia wants to make a deal.” If Zelensky doesn’t act fast, “he’s going to miss a great opportunity
At the exact same moment in Munich, Graham suggests that he will obstruct any peace deal that doesn’t heavily favor Ukraine. “Any agreement has to come to the Senate,” he says. “So I’m here to tell you I’m not going to vote for an agreement that I think is deficient…I’m not going to support any deal that Ukraine doesn’t support.”
“Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” Blumenthal adds, repeating a line used extensively by the Biden administration in 2022.
Graham and Blumenthal have their eyes on Beijing, with Blumenthal calling China “the toxic element here.”
According to him, China is a country “that is bent on dominance…economically, militarily, and politically throughout the world.”
The two lawmakers want to hit Beijing with up to 500% tariffs for buying Russian oil.
Graham says he wants “tripwire forces” in Ukraine after any peace deal, but “they won’t be American.”
The Europeans on the panel don’t push back against the idea of being used as a suicide squad.
“When we offered Zelensky a ride out on a helicopter, he said ‘don’t send a helicopter, send ammunition
This never happened. The quote was fabricated by US intelligence agents. In the pantheon of pro-Ukraine propaganda, it ranks somewhere between ‘the Ghost of Kiev’ and ‘Russia building missiles from washing machines’.
“Putin’s done more to bring us together in the Senate than anybody in America,” Graham declares.
He’s got a point: beneath the partisan bickering, Democrats and Republicans rarely disagree on foreign policy matters. Richard Blumenthal makes the point even clearer when he declares “I’m in the John McCain wing of the Democratic party.”
Blumenthal then recycles some classic neocon talking points: negotiating with “murderous thug” Putin would be akin to appeasing Hitler, opposing Russia is a matter of “moral clarity,” and the US and Europe have to cough up “a slew of military aid” for Ukraine.
Lindsey Graham asks for a show of hands: “how many people believe [Putin] wants to take all of Ukraine?”
“And he’s not gonna stop until somebody stops him,” Graham claims, proposing more sanctions and the delivery of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Tomahawk cruise missiles require American operators, and their delivery would drag the US to the verge of open war with Russia. Graham has pushed for such escalation since the conflict escalated in 2022, demanding a NATO-enforced “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, Russia’s designation as a terrorist entity, and the assassination of Putin.
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.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Defense Minister Johann Wadephul share a very enthusiastic greeting in Munich.
Flashbacks to the good old days:
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
Waltz brought gifts: light blue ‘Make the UN Great Again’ hats. “Otherwise known as MUNGA,” he says as Kallas takes the souvenir.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
“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.
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.
“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.