Editor's note: Radhika Desai, a special commentator for CGTN, is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Ironically for a conference on security, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) last year witnessed the opening salvo of a war between the Trump administration and Europe's leaders. U.S. Vice President JD Vance lectured them, but not as usual, on the defense burden. Opening a new front, he claimed that Europe was betraying the West's "shared values" by practicing censorship, suppressing dissent, excluding populist voices and even cancelling elections. His European audience could only fume in impotent frustration. Since then, there have been other battles: over Ukraine, tariffs, the regulation of U.S. social media platforms, in Trump's Davos speech, and most recently, over Greenland.

The organizers put in a lot of work to better prepare Europe for the 62nd MSC, scheduled for February 13 to 15, 2026. However, it can only guarantee that this year too, the MSC will turn into a theater in the war, with the Europeans in finer fettle. The MSC report, "Under Destruction," portrays a world facing more "fundamental questions … at the same time" than ever before, even as it is battered by the "wrecking ball politics" of the Trump administration.

The Trump administration is destroying the post-war world order, cruelly abandoning and even threatening long-standing allies in Europe and Asia, wantonly undermining the world trade order, and unfeelingly terminating U.S. aid. Europe, the report concludes, can counter this destructive policy only if it "steps up – above all, by significantly investing in its own power resources and pooling them through closer cooperation."

Since 2008, the MSC has done well to broaden its remit beyond Europe and invite influential figures from more countries. However, the shrill, narrow thinking this year has justified the North Atlantic's internal tensions and conflicts beyond.

The roadmap the MSC offers – of "middle powers," essentially Canada and Europe, standing up for themselves against so-clled big powers – was prefigured in the Canadian Prime Minister's Davos speech, which the MSC report references. While most commentators lauded it for recognizing that the post-war order is no more, and even admitting its many hypocrisies, they failed to notice its twin fatal flaws. In instructing "middle powers" to learn to deal with "the world as it is, not as they wish it to be," not only was his diagnosis of the world "as it is" inaccurate, but the world as he, and evidently the Europeans, "wish it to be" has not changed.

The MSC report repeats these mistakes. Rather than acknowledging contemporary multipolarity, the report upholds the "rules-based international order," a code for the Western-dominated world. And instead of accepting the implication of multipolarity – that security and prosperity can never be established unless Western powers make peace with Russia and come to terms with China's rise – the report continues to portray both countries as threats to be fought.

It speaks of "Russia's ongoing aggression," which "constitutes 'the most significant and direct threat' to NATO members and European security," and even speculates that "Russia could reconstitute its forces for a 'regional war' in the Baltic Sea area within two years of a potential ceasefire in Ukraine – and for a 'local' one against a single neighbor within six months." Such rhetoric forecloses any end to the Ukraine conflict.

As for China, the report not only refers to "Beijing's provocation and coercion … increasingly threatening regional stability" but also claims that "China … is laying the groundwork to bring Taiwan under its control," as if this were any of Europe's business. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory, and China's efforts to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity are entirely legitimate and reasonable; they have nothing to do with "provocation" or "coercion."

Further, it refers to China's "domineering" posture and complains that the U.S. is insufficiently committed to countering China, backing down on tariffs and preferring "comparatively accommodating measures" on other economic issues.

In sum, the MSC report justifies Western aggression outside the West and intensifies the West's own international civil war, fought within and between its nations. This strife is rooted in the West's profound economic crisis, which has discredited Western neoliberal establishments and led to the rise of far-right forces, such as those represented by the U.S. President Donald Trump.

With old establishment parties still in power in most of Europe and Canada, they are now battling similar forces both at home and abroad, including the Trump administration. While the Trump administration is directly encouraging far-right forces in Europe, those on the continent's establishment side are working to cooperate with establishment forces in the U.S., chiefly, but not exclusively, the Democrats.

While both sides compete to serve their respective corporate elites – the establishment parties represent the established corporate elite, while the far-right forces represent newer upstarts seeking even further deregulation – the people suffer, further delegitimizing Western ruling circles.

The 62nd MSC is bound to turn into another theater of the West's internal civil war while justifying Western aggression beyond. This time, it may not be JD Vance advancing the Trump administration position but U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been officially assigned the lead. 

Either way, the West's international civil war can only turn the Munich Security Conference into the "Munich Insecurity Conference."

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