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Akbar Novruz

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The Munich Security Conference (MSC) has long been a barometer of Western anxiety. This year, it felt closer to a post-mortem. And ever since the 2026 iteration of MSC, the stage itself is beginning to splinter further on the idea regarding the friction of a multipolar world.

From the opening evening, the tone was unmistakable. What usually begins as a cautious exchange of warnings instead opened with a blunt diagnosis: the international system that once structured expectations, alliances, and restraint is no longer functioning as assumed. The remark landed not as provocation, but as recognition. In Munich, the audience did not argue with the premise; they absorbed it. We have indeed entered the gloomily described “wrecking ball” era of diplomacy, as it has been said.

That reaction alone says much about the moment. For years, the conference has catalogued risks, Russian revisionism, American unpredictability, and Chinese economic leverage, but always within the implicit belief that the old framework, however strained, would somehow endure. This time, the language shifted. The issue was no longer erosion but absence. The skepticism made its strong comeback with the Gaza crisis, reached the climax when the order failed to come up with an idea of resolution for the Russian-Ukrainian war for several years, and when US forces captured Maduro, it might have fallen into pieces.

The conference report mirrored this mood. Its central message was not simply that the system is under pressure, but that the pressure is coming from both outside and within. External challengers matter, but internal decay, loss of trust, hollowed institutions, and declining enforcement of rules have become just as decisive. Order, it suggested, is not being overthrown so much as quietly abandoned.

That idea framed much of what followed. Europe, in particular, is grappling with the realization that its security assumptions were built on habits rather than guarantees. The notion that alliances automatically translate into protection is being inverted. Now the question is what Europe itself must contribute - politically, industrially, militarily, to keep those alliances credible at all.

This recalibration was evident in the interventions from Berlin and Paris. Friedrich Merz spoke of the end of the unipolar moment and the return of power politics, stressing that even the strongest partners can no longer afford strategic solitude. Emmanuel Macron went further, arguing that European security can no longer be defined by watching the gestures of others. In both cases, the message was less about defiance than about maturity: dependence has become a liability.

Behind the rhetoric lies a concrete debate about capability. Strategic autonomy is no longer an abstract slogan in Brussels; it is increasingly a budget line. Joint procurement, accelerated arms production, shared standards, and long-term commitments, especially in relation to Ukraine, are now framed as prerequisites rather than ambitions. Yet the obstacles are obvious. Diverging threat perceptions between Europe’s eastern and southern flanks, limited industrial capacity, and the absence of a shared command culture all threaten to keep strategy on paper.

Ukraine sits at the center of this transformation. The war is no longer treated as an isolated crisis but as a formative test case for whatever security architecture emerges next. Volodymyr Zelenskyy used Munich to emphasize joint production and resilience, highlighting cooperation not as charity but as shared deterrence. The symbolism was deliberate: security, in the new era, is something that must be built together, or not at all.

Hovering over all these discussions was Washington’s recalibrated tone. The message from the American side was measured but unmistakable: alliances endure through burden-sharing, not habit. For Europe, accustomed to treating American commitment as a constant, even a subtle shift carries strategic weight. The mere uncertainty over whether the umbrella will fully open is enough to induce panic in some capitals.

It is here that the Munich debate intersects with a broader global conversation. The paralysis of multilateral institutions, especially the United Nations, was a recurring subtext. Their inability to prevent wars or enforce norms has reduced them to forums of rhetoric rather than instruments of order. This vacuum is being filled unevenly, through ad hoc coalitions, bilateral deals, and transactional politics.

From outside the Western core, this diagnosis sounds familiar. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, has repeatedly argued that states are being forced to rethink security and cooperation precisely because international institutions no longer function as intended. During his interview with Azerbaijani media, he said this:

"More and more countries are already realizing that they need to reconsider their approach with respect to intergovernmental relations, security, and the functioning of international institutions. We see that the United Nations is totally paralyzed; it will not influence any of these issues. And there is no alternative. Hopefully, we will see more common sense in working together, because the new world order should not mean that “whoever is stronger is right.” The new world order should mean new mechanisms for a civilized world, new forms of relations, and a new international order."

Munich offered no blueprint for such a framework, yet. The old order still supplies the language of legitimacy, but no longer commands obedience. The new one remains unnamed, its contours visible only in fragments, energy security debates, supply-chain geopolitics, defence-industrial coordination, and technological rivalry.

This ambiguity is both dangerous and fertile. Delay risks fragmentation, strategic drift, and repeated crises managed on the fly. But acceleration, through joint production, clearer commitments, and political coherence, could produce a more balanced transatlantic relationship rather than a broken one.

In that sense, the 2026 Munich Security Conference may not be remembered as the "Last nail on the coffin", but as a rehearsal, awkward, unfinished, and unsettling, for what comes next. The danger is not that the so-called coffin has been sealed. It is that Europe, and perhaps the wider international community, still hesitates to decide what should replace it.

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Photo by Middle East Monitor