The 2007 speech by Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the Munich Security Conference was one for the ages.
Concepts mentioned therein are only now getting acknowledged:
It is well known that international security comprises much more than issues relating to military and political stability. It involves the stability of the global economy, overcoming poverty, economic security and developing a dialogue between civilisations.
This universal, indivisible character of security is expressed as the basic principle that “security for one is security for all”.
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The unipolar world that had been proposed after the Cold War did not take place either.
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It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.
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There is no reason to doubt that the economic potential of the new centres of global economic growth will inevitably be converted into political influence and will strengthen multipolarity.
Eighteen years later the new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged the fact of a multipolar world. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demolished any hope for Ukraine to enter NATO. Donald Trump, by calling President Putin, accepted the concept of a shared if not yet indivisible security. In 2007 Putin also spoke out against the abuse of so called NGOs to manipulate foreign countries' internal policies. Trump has now stopped USAID and NED from financing these.
Eighteen years on the core concepts of Putin's speech have thus been accepted.
Yesterday another speech at the Munich Security Conference was given by U.S. Vice-President JD Vance (video, transcript). It will also echo for years to come:
Vance opened by saying that the biggest threat to Europe comes not from Russia or China or other external threats. It comes from within by the antidemocratic instincts and behavior of those in power, who trample free speech in the name of fighting ‘disinformation’ and show no respect for political opposition.
While I agree with Vance on this I wonder if he can acknowledge his own U.S. made hypocrisy. It were not the Europeans who initiated the campaign against 'disinformation'. It was the U.S. who came up with this concept and which has been using its 'soft power' to push censorship into Europe.
The German Defense Minister immediately reinforced Vance's critique of too little tolerance for political speech in Europe by calling his speech unacceptable:
"Democracy was called into question by the US Vice President for the whole of Europe earlier," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said from the main stage at the conference. "He speaks of the annihilation of democracy. And if I have understood him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regions… that is not acceptable."
This critique by Vance is also shallow:
I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears.
For years, we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything—from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship—is billed as a defense of democracy.
But when we see European courts canceling elections, and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.
As Arnaud Bertrand points out:
[O]n Romania and much of Vance's criticism directed at Europe, the U.S. was right there alongside Europe acting jointly, and often even guiding Europe's actions. Specifically on Romania for instance, I believe that the US State Department was first in issuing a statement on December 4th (https://2021-2025.state.gov/statement-on-romanias-presidential-elections/) expressing its concern about "Russian involvement in malign cyber activity designed to influence the integrity of the Romanian electoral process" which led to the elections being cancelled two days later (and which, it was later proven, was completely false: it turned out that this "malign cyber activity" were paid for by the very Romanian party in power that cancelled the elections!). It's only after that State Department statement that the Europeans followed the U.S.'s lead.
So it's a bit rich, even very rich, for Vance, less than 2 months afterwards, to lecture Europeans on this without as much as acknowledging the U.S.'s own role in a lot of it.
Vance also criticized mass immigration to Europe. But he is neglecting the fact that the streams of Afghan, Syrian and Ukrainian refugees are a consequence of wars that the U.S. has caused and is waging. He laments the de-industrialization of Germany but ignores the U.S. bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines which is the greatest cause of it.
Vance calls for more democracy in Europe but at the same time is actively meddling in it. By pushing nationalist parties against European institution he is endangering peace in Europe.
The speech is a wake up call for Europeans to fight for their own sovereignty. As such it may have good impact:
After the dark days of the Biden repressions, the reliance of Power on corrupt intelligence agencies and the weaponization of the Justice Department, it was remarkable to be treated to such brave words from a top American official in defense of the people against the authoritarian rulers in Brussels, in Berlin, in Paris.
It is hard to see how the usurper Ursula van der Leyen and her whole team of people-haters will be able to hold onto power in these conditions.
Vance's speech may also be seen as the watershed where the U.S. divorces from Europe. There is a hidden danger in this:
The Europeanisation of Nato, framed as a necessity following US withdrawal, has accelerated the continent’s militarisation and its leaders’ demonisation of Russia, perpetuating the very conditions that caused the conflict in Ukraine in the first place. Instead of using this moment to engage in diplomacy, European leaders view the US retreat as a reason to escalate militarily. In this sense, Washington’s decoupling from Europe is at odds with Trump’s stated aim of achieving peace in Ukraine.
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Ironically, the US’s attempt to distance itself from European security affairs may ultimately pull it back into an even larger conflict — one that it will have far less control over.