“The Munich Security Report, presented on February 9, just days before the opening of the conference of the same name in Germany, is titled “Under Destruction”. The elephant on the cover is the symbol of the U.S. Republican Party and is a hint at the main theme, the destructive policies of U.S. President Donald Trump”, - Deutsche Welle writes about the contents of the Munich Report on February 9.
The outlet notes that the Munich Security Conference (MSC) is already over 60 years old, but the annual reports are a relatively new phenomenon.
“This is the brainchild of its long-time and current chairman, former German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger. The 2026 report is one of the most pessimistic in recent years. If previous generations of U.S. allies could rely not only on ‘American power’ but also, in general, on a shared understanding of the principles of the world order, today this ‘seems much less’ reliable, Ischinger writes in the foreword. The report itself contains an even more explicit wording: the ‘era’ when Europe prospered under the American security ‘umbrella’ has ‘ended’”, - Deutsche Welle writes.
The authors of the Munich Report state that Trump is the most visible “destroyer” of the world order, and Europe has been left without the American “umbrella”. Ukraine is called “one of the first victims” of the new type of world order in the document.
“Instead of treating it primarily as a matter of sovereignty and international law, the war is being reframed as a subject of negotiations between strong leaders, during which territory, security guarantees, and even natural resources become bargaining chips”, - the report prepared for the Munich Security Conference says.
At the same time, the war in Ukraine receives less attention in the new document than in previous Munich Reports. The document only notes that moscow shows no intention of ending the war, and that European countries, although they continue to support Ukraine, are moving along this path at different speeds. And the failed attempt to use frozen russian assets in the EU to help Kyiv, according to the authors of the report, demonstrated the “limitations of the collective European response in the face of russian intimidation”.
A separate section of the report is devoted to the results of the Munich Security Index surveys — they are conducted in 11 countries that make up the G7 and BRICS (excluding russia). And, according to the surveys, the perception of the threat from russia in the world has noticeably decreased — in G7 countries russia has fallen from second to eighth place in this regard. The U.S., on the contrary, is increasingly being seen as a threat by more people.