From Dialogue Forum to Militarised Ritual

For decades, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) – which opened today and runs till Sunday – was one of the few places where adversaries could meet without theatrics. Founded in 1963 as the Wehrkundetagung, it served as a discreet Cold War dialogue forum between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Even at moments of high tension, Soviet and later Russian representatives were present, and Munich allowed uncomfortable messages to be delivered directly rather than through press releases or military manoeuvres.

That era has vanished. The MSC has become something entirely different: a €13–20 million annual gathering of a closed Western security elite, a polished meeting of governments, defence industries, major media and aligned think tanks, all wrapped in the language of dialogue but operating as a self‑reinforcing militarist echo chamber.

A €20‑Million Structure That Predetermines Its Outcome

The MSC’s financing reveals its orientation more clearly than any mission statement. Roughly €5–7 million comes from the German federal government; €6–10 million from corporate sponsors, including major defence and security companies; and €2–3 million from foundations and institutional partners.

When governments and arms‑industry actors are the primary funders, the gravitational pull inevitably shifts toward military‑centric definitions of security, technological solutions, alliance cohesion and deterrence doctrines, while peacebuilding, conflict transformation, diplomacy, mediation and non‑military approaches — which lack comparable financial backers — quietly disappear from the agenda.

In consequence, the MSC will be devoid of free thinking, alternative non-military security measures and every vision of a better world.

Speaking About the World, Not With It

The MSC’s agenda is curated by a tight circle of leadership, advisory‑council members, government partners, corporate sponsors and security‑aligned think tanks. Each layer reinforces the others, producing a remarkably coherent worldview in which the same actors define the problems, propose the solutions and moderate the discussions.

Panels are dominated by Western officials, military leaders and analysts funded by the same governments and industries that support the MSC; moderators from major Western media outlets reinforce prevailing assumptions rather than interrogating them.

The result is predictable: panels on Russia without Russians; panels on China with only one Chinese representative (its foreign minister whose different perspectives are hardly ever quoted by Western media); panels on peace without peace researchers; panels on the Global South without Global South voices.

Thanks to remarkable intellectual inbreeding, the MSC increasingly speaks about adversaries, about diplomacy, about peace — but not with the actors concerned, nor with those who work professionally on conflict resolution, least of all the UN.

This is an intentional architecture crafted by the congregation of the NATO Church, and so it is only logical that its former Secretary‑General, Jens Stoltenberg, now takes over as its presiding priest.•

The Only Prescription: More Weapons

Across the MSC, the policy prescriptions are strikingly uniform: more weapons, stronger deterrence, longer‑range strike capabilities, higher military spending, deeper alliance integration.

The logic is circular: insecurity is met with more armament, which produces more insecurity, which justifies more armament. Offensive long‑range deterrence is a 100 percent predictable insecurity generator, because the opponent sees it as a threat, not reassurance – no matter your argument that you have no bad intentions.

Furthermore, the world has never spent more on weaponry than it does today, yet the objective risk of a major war is rising, not falling. Citizens facing economic crises are told to pay through their noses for “security” that demonstrably increases their risk.

In any rational forum, someone would stand up and say: Something must be wrong: let us stop and think. At Munich, no one does.

The Kabuki theatre must continue. Remember, anyone can start a fight in a bar – or a war – but it requires a few capacities to avoid war and create peaceful coexistence.

From Dialogue to Narrative Consolidation

Since the Obama-orchestrated Maidan regime-change in Kiev on 22 February 2014 and Russia’s Crimea annexation of 18 March 2014, the MSC has steadily closed the door on dialogue with Russia — a far cry from 2007 when Putin gave his now historic low-key speech in which he asked what had happened to the promises given to Gorbachev about not expanding NATO one inch.

The MSC has aligned itself fully with the strategic posture of NATO and the EU. Dialogue with adversaries has been replaced by discussions about adversaries; panels on Russia or China are framed entirely through Western threat lenses; and the conference has become a stage where governments, industries, media and aligned academics reinforce a single worldview that defines security almost exclusively in military terms and is unable to see the larger world and its opportunities.

The tragedy is not that the MSC has a perspective; the tragedy is that it has only one. And it is anything but trust, confidence, conflict-resolution and peace.

The Missing Counterpart: A Global Peace Conference

The MSC’s official prominence and media attention highlights a deeper structural absence: there is no equivalent high‑level forum for peace. No annual gathering where peace researchers, mediators, peace workers, conflict‑resolution practitioners, civil society, Global South voices, non‑aligned states and humanitarian actors and people of culture meet to explore non‑military approaches to security.

The most unrealistic and debunked assumption is that security is about arms and more arms lead to more stability, security and peace – the mantra of the NATO Church, no matter what the alliance does, including violating it own treaty 24/7 since bombing Yugoslavia in 1999.

There is no €20‑million (or cheaper) platform for diplomacy, prevention, reconciliation or structural peacebuilding; no global stage where peace is treated with the same seriousness, resources and media attention as deterrence, rearmament and unlimited militarist thinking.

The imbalance is not accidental; it reflects political priorities and the MIMAC‑shaped worldview that now dominates Western security thinking.

It is dead dangerous for you and me – in substance and because of its own self-affirming blindness.

Understanding Munich for What It Has Become

The Munich Security Conference no longer functions as a platform for dialogue between adversaries or as a space for exploring diverse approaches to security. Instead, it has become a high‑profile meeting point for a closed security groupthink — a place where elite interests converge, narratives are synchronised and the boundaries of acceptable discourse are tightly managed.

It is time understand it honestly. It is time for free media (if they still exist) to have a critical perspective. Will they, or have they been co-opted completely?

Until someone invests in a serious, well‑funded, global peace conference — something with the scale, visibility and ambition of Munich — the imbalance will remain. And so will the risks of warfare.

Perhaps it is time for BRICS, the Belt & Road Initiative, a coalition of peace-willing in cooperation with the United Nations and non-Western regions and actors – governments and citizens – to arrange a conference for true peace and human security where the military dimension has its proper – minimal – place.

We must never accept that violence becomes the first resort. It should always be the last resort after everything else has been tried and found in vain.

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P.S. A conference that invites María Corina Machado to speak about Venezuela, Lindsey Graham to speak about Russia, Tony Blair to speak about peace, and uses only conservative Western media as moderators, documents not global security thinking but the intellectual and ethical disarmament of a declining West and – who knows? – a disintegrating EU and NATO.

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Prof. Jan Oberg, Ph.D. is director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research-TFF in Sweden and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. CV: https://transnational.live/jan-oberg
https://transnational.live.

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