MSC Kick-off

"Re:vision". The 60th Munich Security Conference  took place amid intensifying efforts by autocratic states to revise the international order: from Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine to China’s tacit support thereof and own attempts to assert a sphere of influence in East Asia. Meanwhile, many states in the “Global South” have expressed their dissatisfaction with the status quo and have refused to speak up against Russia’s fundamental violation of the UN Charter.

Debates about different visions for the future international order are often abstract and theoretical. By invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the clash of competing visions a brutal and deathly reality. The Munich Security Report 2023 explores intensifying authoritarian revisionism and the growing contest between different visions for the international order. It also stimulates the debate on how the coalition defending the vision of a liberal, rules-based order can be enlarged and strengthened.

The Munich Security Report 2023 was presented on February 13th at the Representation of the Free State of Bavaria in Berlin during the kick-off event for the main conference of 2023. Among the prominent guests were Mircea Geoană, Deputy Secretary General of NATO and member of the MSC Security Innovation Board; Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and Munich Young Leader 2021/2022; Tobias Lindner, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office; and Nathalie Tocci, Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome. The panel discussion was moderated by Christoph Heusgen, Ambassador of the MSC. The guests presented the new MSR 2023 and provided an outlook on the upcoming conference. You can find the media library for the event here.

“Turning the Tide: Unlearning Helplessness” is the title of this year’s Munich Security Report. It explores the emergence of a sense of collective helplessness and ways to overcome it.

After one year of hiatus, the 58th Munich Security Conference, the last one chaired by Wolfgang Ischinger, again took place in person – even though due to the ongoing pandemic, the number of participants was massively reduced. Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and many other elements of what the Munich Security Report 2022 describes as a "rising tide of crises" had left little doubt about the urgent need for the international security community to resume in-person gatherings.

Due to the current Covid-19 regulations, this year’s presentation of the Munich Security Report 2022 was once again held exclusively as a press conference, led by Wolfgang Ischinger, Tobias Bunde, and Stephan Detjen. They also provided an outlook on the upcoming conference. You can find the media library for the event here.

Titled "Between States of Matter - Competition and Cooperation," the Munich Security Conference (MSC) presented the Munich Security Report 2021 at the Federal Press Conference on June 9, 2021. Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the MSC, and Tobias Bunde, Director of Research & Policy, introduced the key insights from the report. The Munich Security Report 2021, which was published ahead of the G7 and NATO summits, explores the challenge of navigating an international environment shaped by two “states of matter,” competition and cooperation.

Due to the current Covid-19 regulations, this year’s presentation of the Munich Security Report 2021 was held exclusively as a press conference, led by Wolfgang Ischinger and Tobias Bunde. You can find the media library for the event here.

"What does it mean for the world if the West leaves the stage to others?" This is the overarching question of the Munich Security Report 2020, which Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, presented at this year’s MSC Kick-off event on February 10 at the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin with over 300 guests. Christoph Heusgen, Anne-Marie Descôtes and James L. Jones joined for a panel discussion on the internal and external challenges facing the Western project.

The Munich Security Report 2020, titled "Westlessness," serves as a conversation starter for the 56^th Munich Security Conference and background reading for security professionals and the broader interested public. Featuring insightful analyses, data, maps, and infographics, it sheds light on some of the most critical challenges to international security. This year, the Munich Security Report focused on the role of the West in the world, and how it is challenged both internally and externally: by the emergence of illiberalism inside many Western countries, growing disunity among Western nations, and the relative rise of non-Western powers.

The event summary of the Kick-off event 2020 can be found here.

"Who will pick up the pieces of the disintegrating world order?" This is the overarching question of the Munich Security Report 2019, which Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, presented at this year’s Kick-off event on 11 February at the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin with over 300 guests. On this occasion, Timothy Garton Ash, Professor for European Studies in Oxford, and Sabine Weyand, Deputy Chief Brexit Negotiator of the EU, discussed the possible consequences of an exit of the United Kingdom from the EU in the context of a disintegrating world order.

As an impulse for the 55th Munich Security Conference, the Munich Security Report 2019 provides an overview of some of the most pressing security topics and features insightful analyses, data, maps, and infographics. The MSR 2019 serves as background reading for conference participants, but is also aimed at the general public. At the Kick-off event at the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin, lead author Tobias Bunde presented the key themes of the Munich Security Report 2019.

The event summary of the Kick-off 2020 event can be found here.

“In the last year, the world came closer – much too close – to the brink of a significant conflict. With our Munich Security Report 2018, we are asking if the international community is moving away from that brink again." With these remarks, the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, opened this year's MSC Kick-off event. On this occasion, the MSC welcomed more than 300 guests to the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin on February 8.

The event also featured the publication of the Munich Security Report 2018, titled "To the Brink - and Back?" The report highlights some of the most pressing security policy challenges and serves as a background reading for the 54th Munich Security Conference.

The event provided an overview of the topics of the upcoming Munich Security Conference. Following the presentation of the Munich Security Report 2018, Ambassador Ischinger discussed future challenges to German and European foreign policy with Michael Roth, Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office. A subsequent panel discussion featured Mark Leonard, Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations as well as Franziska Brantner and Niels Annen, Members of the German Bundestag for the Alliance 90/The Greens and SPD Parliamentary Group, respectively.

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"The international security order today is probably more volatile than at any other point after the end of World War II." With these words, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, welcomed the approximately 300 guests of the traditional MSC Kick-off event at the Bavarian Representation in Berlin on February 13, 2017.

Ischinger gave a first overview of the topics of the upcoming 53nd Munich Security Conference and presented the Munich Security Report 2017. Entitled "Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?", the report compiles a variety of analyses, data, statistics, infographics, and maps on major developments and challenges in international security. Ischinger's summary: "The West is shaken to its very foundations."

His introductory remarks were followed by a debate with State Secretaries Emily Haber (German Federal Ministry of the Interior) and Markus Ederer (German Federal Foreign Office), as well as a keynote speech by Norbert Lammert, President of the German Bundestag.

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The Kick-Off for the 52nd Munich Security Conference took place on 28 January 2016 in the German capital. The event was hosted at the  Representation of the Free State of Bavaria in Berlin and was attended by about 250 guests of the military, private sector, academia, civil society, media as well as German government officials and the Berlin diplomatic community.

The former UN Secretary General and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kofi Annan, the former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel as well as the Head of the German Federal Chancellery Peter Altmaier discussed the boundlessness of conflicts and crises, together with the MSC Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger. The current refugee crisis as well as the conflict in Syria were the focus of the debate and of the speeches. The speakers agreed that the crisis and the conflict could only be resolved through a joint international responses. Wolfgang Ischinger confirmed that the refugee crisis would also be high on the agenda during the upcoming conference in Munich. 

This year’s version of the Munich Security Report (8.51 MB), which sheds light on major challenges and trends in international security today,  was also launched at the Kick-Off.

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The 51st Munich Security Conference was kicked off in Berlin on January 26, 2015. The Representation of the Free State of Bavaria in Berlin received about 200 guests from politics and business.

During the event, the panelists debated whether increased German responsibility at the global level would also require increased military interventions  - Peter Gauweiler, MoP for the CSU and deputy chairman of the CSU, Stefan Liebich, MoP for Die Linke, Klaus Naumann, former general of the German army and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee and Norbert Röttgen, MoP for the CDU debated the topic.

At the event, the Munich Security Conference also presented the Munich Security Report – its new flagship publication – entitled “Collapsing Order, Relluctant Guardians?”. The MSR presents data, analyses and maps which illustrate major developments and critical challenges to international security and serves as conversation starter for the Munich Security Conference.

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Ten days ahead of the 50th Munich Security Conference, over 200 politicians, diplomats, journalists, and other guests came together in Berlin for the annual MSC Kick-Off event. Together with distinguished guests, among them German State Secretary Ederer and US Ambassador to Germany Emerson, the MSC chairman Wolfgang Ischinger introduced key topics of the 50 th Munich Security Conference. During the Kick-Off, the MSC also presented the anniversary book "Towards Mutual Security – Fifty Years of Munich Security Conference". Contributors to this unique selection of essays include Helmut Schmidt, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Omid Nouripour, and John McCain.

The MSC kick-off on January 21th, 2013, introduced into the key topics of the 49th Munich Security Conference, focussing on the challenges in the aftermath of the "Arab Spring" as well on the Iranian nuclear question. Deputy NATO Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, the Free Democratic Party member of the German Bundestag, Rainer Stinner, Egypt’s Deputy Foreign Minister and designated Deputy Secretary General of the Arab League Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy, and the Christian Democratic Union member of the German Bundestag and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German Bundestag, Ruprecht Polenz, discussed these issues with Iranian IAEO Ambassador Ali Asgar Soltanieh and MSC Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger.