Leaders established at the Munich Security Conference as a world order in danger of crumble

The US Vice President, JD Vance, the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, and up to 60 world leaders and decision makers must meet in Munich over the next three days for the Annual Security Conference of Munich (MSC).

For almost two decades, I have been attending and covering this event for the BBC and I cannot think of a year that there has been much at stake in terms of global security. A senior and very experienced western official said this week “this is the most dangerous and disputed time I have met in my career.”

Because?

In a nutshell, the current World Security Order, the order based on peaceful international rules, is in danger of falling apart. Some would say that this is already happening.

When President Putin launched his large -scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, he was widely condemned by much, although not everything, in the world. NATO, the EU and the West in general reached an extraordinary level of unity by gathering to help Ukraine to defend themselves, without attracting direct conflict with Russia.

Except for a little democration of Slovakia and Hungary, there was a general consensus that you should see the invasion of Putin fail or NATO would be critically weakened, while Russia would eventually be tempted to invade another neighboring country, as Estonia. It was often said that Ukraine should receive what is necessary and during the time he took to ensure a lasting peace of a position of force.

Not anymore.

President Trump has effectively removed the carpet from the Ukraine negotiation position by admit realistic”.

The United States has also expelled kyiv’s hopes to join NATO, a key ambition from President Zelensky, and ruled out sending US troops to help protect his borders from the next time Russia decides to invade.

An even greater commotion has come with the news that President Trump made an apparently cordial telephone call of 90 minutes with President Putin, abruptly ending the freezing of three years of the West when speaking with the Russian leader who has been in force since the time since the time of the moment of invasion.

During the next 72 hours we will hear in Munich of President Trump’s team here in Munich what will be the details of his plan for Ukraine. Some of them have still been resolved after their envoy, the general retired from the US army Keith Kellogg, travels to kyiv next week.

But for now, NATO unity is poorly detained, since there is clearly a big difference of opinion on Ukraine between Washington and Europe. One wants the war to end as quickly as possible, even if that means granting many of Moscow’s demands.

The other still believed, at least until this week, that with Russia it lost around a thousand loss of battlefield a day and its economy facing terrible problems in the long term, the best way to win a lasting peace would be to maintain pressure on Moscow until His army was exhausted and agreed the most favorable peace terms for Ukraine.

That will not happen now.

For the NATO alliance, now in its 76th year, there are other worrying cracks that begin to appear that will also come to discuss here at the Munich Security Conference.

Last month, President Trump announced that he wanted to “buy” Greenland, an autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark. When the Prime Minister of Denmark, Frederkson, assured his population that “Greenland is not for sale,” followed what was called a phone call “horrenda” of Donald Trump that he has not ruled out the use of force to take Greenland.

The idea of ​​an NATO country that threatens to take part in the territory of another NATO country would have been unthinkable so far. In the case of Greenland, there is no justification in the security field, since there are more American troops in Greenland than the Danish and Copenhagen is happy to agree on ways of promoting mutual defense for the island.

But even if nothing about this idea arises, and most of Scandinavia expects that this to be, in some aspects the damage has already been done. The message has left the leader of the free world that it is well threatening its neighbors by force if you want its territory.

“It can be,” says Lord Kim Darroch, former National Security Advisor of the United Kingdom and British ambassador to Washington, “that the threat of Trump’s economic measures against NATO Denmark ally, and his refusal to discard military actions against They are just negotiating tactics.

Washington’s European allies will seek some tranquility here in Munich that is not the case. But President Trump is already on his way to remodeling the role of the United States in the world and the indications are unlikely that he listens to any complaint from Europe.