The Munich Security Conference (MSC) is the largest conference on international security policy, held in Munich Germany annually since 1963 with a motto: Peace through Dialogue. The MSC has become the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers. Each year it brings together hundreds of senior figures, including heads of state and leaders of governments, international organizations, and businesses as well as representatives from the military, civil society, science, and media, from all over the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security issues. In 2024, the MSC was held from February 16-18 at Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The first meeting that Henry Kissinger attended with Helmut Schmidt was limited to 60 attendees and today the participants exceeded 800. The conference and its supporting company were subsumed into the MSC Foundation in 2018 with an endowment by the German Government and other donors, the funding was increased to €10 million in 2022 mostly from corporations. The MSC was canceled twice, once in 1991 due to the Gulf War, once in 1997 due to the founder Kleist-Schmenzin’s retirement, and was opened in 1999 for political, military, and business leaders from Central and Eastern Europe as well as China, India, and Japan. So, the 2024 MSC is its 60th anniversary.
The 2024 MSC agenda was organized under five topics: Defense, Global Order, Human Security, Sustainability, and Technology. The multiple sessions were given as presentations and conversations as well as roundtables and spotlights in panel format. The MSC maintains a good website with some of the key presentations video recorded, giving people who are interested in global order, human security, world development, and sustainability a chance to review most of the presentations. The conference allotted time for major countries and countries under severe security threats presently to use the MSC forum to present their status and political positions to the world. Ukraine, Israel, the EU, the U.S., and China were all given a time slot to voice their concerns. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke on the U.S. view of world security and its role in defending global order. It was clear that the U.S. shall not retreat to isolation and will continue with its alliance strategy to lead the world. However, there was little substance in her speech about how the U.S. could bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine or Gaza. On the other hand, Foreign Minister Wang Yi articulated China’s position and efforts trying to mediate a ceasefire and strongly opposed any decoupling effort which would cause instability and economic disaster in the world. In the Q&A session after Harris’s presentation, she mentioned her trip to Africa and was queried by African leaders: “Are you here because of China?” Harris answered no, she said she was seeking partnership with African nations for economic development. This little tidbit confirms a perception that the Chinese investment and economic development effort in Africa was genuinely helpful for Africans. If this indeed motivated the U.S. to find partners in Africa to promote development in the economy, it would be not only good for Africa but also good for the world.
People who have not attended the MSC probably do not appreciate the importance of this conference. A short paper written by Prof. Avi Loeb (Lessons from the 2024 Munich Security Conference was published on his website (avi-loeb.medium.com) giving a little description of the conference atmosphere. Two things caught my attention, one was he saw many snipers on the hotel rooftop and the other was he mentioned several distinguished representatives (Kamala Harris, Tony Blinken, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Hillary Clinton) were in the hotel building. This author is very interested in learning the significance of the MSC. Out of curiosity, I looked up the attendees list on the official MSC website. From the list of nearly 800 names, I began to realize how important the MSC is. I saw at least 200 attendees from the U.S., reading very much like a who’s who list. I took the 200 names and grouped them into a few categories based on professions so I could see the distribution and how they might network in the MSC. My first category was White House, I found 7 names including Vice President Harris. My second category was U.S. Government, I found 21 names including Sec. of State, Dir. of FBI, Sec. of Homeland Security, Sec. of Army, Asst Sec of Treasury, and assistant or undersecretary of DOC, DOD, DOE, and DOS as well as Special Envoy like John Kerry. In addition, there were 6 retired Government officials including Hillary Clinton, Mike Pompeo, Kelly Craft, and Michael Froman. There were also 12 names of military generals including three retired into consulting or think tank business. From the above lists, I realized that our government was putting a tremendous amount of attention and resources into the MSC, letting 46 high-level officials attend this conference.
Continuing with my sorting, I found 14 U.S. Senators and 19 U.S. Congress Representatives on the MSC attendee list, including Nancy Pelosi, former House Speaker, and Hakeem Jeffries, the current minority leader in the House. Adding 33 to the above 46, one would realize that a total of 79 high-level officials attended the MSC, and many attended annually. By further sorting, twenty-five business leaders were found to have high positions, chairman, CEO, president, or VP, from big corporations like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Qualcomm, YouTube, Estee Lauder, MITRE, Siemens, Bayer, Boeing, Oracle, Leidos and Dataminr. There were 43 business leaders in investment, consulting, technology, or foundations and 19 professionals from think tanks or research institutions; for simplification, they can be grouped as one category indicating a strong interest among businesses in security issues. Surprisingly, I found only 7 attendees from the media industry (Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, The Atlantic, CTV News, and 2 NBC correspondents). I can only interpret this as the wish of the conference organizer desiring controlled and limited media exposure. The six attendees from the UN including the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, and the 15 academicians from universities including the president of the University of Florida and professors from Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale were not a surprise. Even the attendance of Maria Ressa, the 2021 Nobel Peace Laureate was also understandable. The reason I took the time to comb through the attendee list was that I would like to solve a puzzle in my mind.
My puzzle is that the MSC conference has been growing over the last six decades, its attendees increased from 60 in 1963 to over 800 in 2024, but our global order and security seem to be getting worse since the 60’s. The MSC is supposed to provide a forum for dialogue, decision-makers, learned scholars, and security professionals gather each year to discuss problems and derive solutions. Why does the MSC conference grow each year but our global security especially human security impacted by wars and natural disasters could not be improved? As I combed through the presentations or panel discussions, I found no positive news. It makes one wonder why so many leaders and bright professionals are eager to attend the MSC year after year, yet with little significant accomplishment to show for it?! Like the Davos Conference on the economy and the Shangri-la Conference on defense, the MSC is the most important conference for promoting dialogue on security issues. The goal of attending this conference is to increase understanding and find solutions for resolving international or global conflicts, prevent natural disasters, and seek cooperation for improving human living conditions. We citizens must ask the question, especially to those who attend the MSC annually what have you accomplished at the conference for us?
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