In the grand scheme of European history, the 19th century stands out as an era of peace. However, this characterization of the epoch – defined by historians as spanning the Congress of Vienna and the start of World War I – rings only partly true. A whole series of wars dotted Europe at the time, like the Crimean War and the Italian and German wars of unification, just to name …

When Federica Mogherini was named the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, one particular photo made the rounds in Brussels. It shows the Italian politician at the Kremlin, shaking the hand of Vladimir Putin. Their grasp is firm, their eyes locked. The photo was taken during her first trip to Moscow, in July 2014, when Mogherini was still foreign minister of Italy.

Whoever greets Putin so affably cannot possibly speak …

Looking at the West today, a Russian who witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago sees a striking picture. Political America is gripped in a cold civil war, and is led by a president who acts as if he were still the star of a reality TV show. British politicians have managed to maneuver their island into a Brexit limbo. Their French colleagues had to file for …

In the long and complicated history of the Cold War, tensions and détente had their peaks and troughs. One profound achievement of peacemaking was the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, signed in Helsinki in 1975. It was the embodiment of a new modus vivendi, above all in the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Helsinki Process led to the creation …

When Social Democrats make the case for new initiatives in Germany’s official Russia policy, they are usually dismissed for being “naïve Russophiles.” So let’s get the following out of the way before we go any further: Yes, the Russian state has broken international law and continues to undertake obvious attempts to destabilize the EU and Western democracies. And, yes, it’s highly likely that Russian forces have influenced elections and referenda. …

As we meet in Munich this year, the prediction made in last year’s edition of this paper with regard to the growing importance of great power rivalries still rings in our ears. Geopolitics is back and likely to stay.

What is more, our strategic environment is growing ever more unpredictable. Today, major powers openly challenge the rulesbased international order and seek to promote alternative visions of a world divided into …

The Munich Security Conference has grown accustomed to ranking the security threats to the West: Islamist terrorists, Russian revisionism or the global ambitions of China’s big data dictatorship. But today, the most critical challenges come not from outside the West but from the political dynamics within.

In 2019, they actually derive from one of the most unlikely sources: the elections to the European Parliament. Traditionally, these elections bear almost no …

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Europe has rarely been associated worth power. Complaints about Europe’s weakness are the rule, especially among those Europeans who too often favor depressive self-reflection over strategic observation, Germany included. Only one hundred years ago, just before World War I, European powers were at their imperial peak – and the US was beginning its rise. Many countries that are now our equal partners were, …

In past decades – a time we may yet come to refer to wistfully as “the good old days” – America’s national security elites have tended to be somewhat blasé about the National Security Strategy (NSS). In 1986, a Congress alarmed by US policy failures in Vietnam, Iran and Grenada had decreed that this document should be produced at the outset of each new administration to explain the principles and …

For almost seven decades, NATO has helped keep the peace in Europe. This zone of stability has not only benefitted NATO members on both sides of the Atlantic, but the broader Euro-Atlantic community and our neighbors as well.

Our Alliance has been successful because we have continued to adapt to the ever-evolving security challenges we face. Since 2014, the security landscape in Europe has changed dramatically, from Russia’s illegal annexation …