By Atilio Boron on February 21, 2026
Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference, Alex Brandon/AP
The Security Conference met recently, between February 13 and 15, at its usual venue in Munich, Bavaria. Outside of the United Nations General Assembly, the MSC is the most well-attended meeting in the world. The official report for this session states that it was attended by more than a thousand participants from some 115 countries, including 60 heads of state and government and more than 50 leaders of international organizations, as well as more than 100 think tanks. In addition to the main activities, the report mentions 270 parallel events held in conjunction with the Conference.
As usual, the discussions were set against the backdrop of the Munich Security Report 2026, a 120-page text with a shocking title: “Under Destruction.” The report’s fundamental thesis is in line with many arguments that suddenly gained popularity in Europe, especially after Russia launched its “special military operation” on Ukraine, and which could be summarized as follows: Russia is dominated by an old and uncontrollable ambition to take over Europe and is the enemy to be defeated. This situation is all the more threatening, according to the report, after what it describes as the Russian “invasion” of Ukraine, which serves as irrefutable proof of the prevailing Russophobia, insofar as the United States is abandoning Europe to its fate and seeking an immoral (and suicidal, according to many Europeans) agreement with Moscow. In line with this premise, the report speaks of a Europe that must be rebuilt under existing and future conditions of destruction. Why future? Because, in line with some very reactionary interpretations in American academia, those countries previously characterized as “reformists” of the international system—Russia and China—are now considered enemies who want to destroy it, not just reform it.
From reform, we move, without mediation, to the destruction of the entire framework patiently constructed in the years following World War II. It is no coincidence, then, that the report revolves around the centrality of the powers supposedly driven by that destructive zeal. A cursory inspection of the report confirms the centrality of this thesis. Although the original ambition of this piece is to offer an overview of global security issues, the “Eurocentric” bias of the analysis is more than evident. We share the criticism of the “Eurocentrism” of certain Latin American analyses and theories on imperialism, but we understand (though we do not justify) that our European colleagues have European interests as their exclusive point of reference when seeking to interpret the challenges posed by a world order whose main destroyer has been the United States, with the collaboration of the Europeans, who validated—either through their complicit silence or more active involvement—all of Washington’s crimes. Hence, an issue as sensitive as the criminal genocide to which the Palestinian people are subjected is barely mentioned four times throughout the report. In other words, Gaza and its destruction, and its “ethnic cleansing” do not exist. Greenland had a greater presence, with 15 mentions, less than Ukraine, which appears 80 times throughout the report. The most repeated mention is that of China: 201, more than double that of the United States, which appears 91 times, while Russia appears in 106 passages of the report.
Of course, Russia had had, through Vladimir Putin, an exceptional presence at the 2007 session, in which the president of the Russian Federation roundly criticized the prevailing consensus. First of all, it should be remembered that once the Soviet Union collapsed, Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin tried unsuccessfully to integrate Russia into the European concert. But they failed in their attempt. Gorbachev had gone so far as to propose, before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the construction of a “common European home,” conceived as a complex building with multiple rooms but without a single center of power. This common home would be inhabited by the different peoples of Europe, including, of course, the Russians, with cultural heterogeneity serving as the mortar that would unify them. The proposal, continued with even more vigor by Yeltsin, was completely ignored. As Moscow opened its arms to welcome investments from European and American capitalist companies with stupid naivety, what these companies did in Russia was the same as what they had been doing on the capitalist periphery: relentless plundering of state-owned companies and unbridled appropriation of the common goods existing in the vast expanse of Russian territory. They contributed nothing and took everything. It is this history that lies behind Putin’s 2007 speech, in addition to the contempt and racist underestimation of Russia. What were his fundamental theses?
First, a criticism of US unipolarism and unilateralism, of Washington’s desire to impose its will and interests on the rest of the world. “What is a unipolar world?” he asked. And he answered: “a single center of power, of force, of decision-making.” And as such, it is incompatible with the complexity of the current international system. Second, he railed against NATO’s expansion eastward, that is, toward Russia’s borders, even though when Moscow agreed to support German unification in 1990 (while some European governments opposed it!), Chancellor Helmut Kohl and other Western leaders swore that “NATO would not move even an inch eastward.” They lied miserably, and today Russia’s western border, with the exception of Belarus and Ukraine, is marked by NATO’s presence, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, including Turkey. Apart from other critical considerations about the European missile shield and its true intentions, Putin lamented the crisis of the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which did not include Russia among its members, and finally, in a very timely criticism, the bankruptcy of the UN Charter and international law, which he said would lead to the “law of the strongest,” something that is sadly being experienced these days in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The current edition of the Conference was attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio who tried to compensate with a more diplomatic tone for the verbal attacks unleashed at the 2025 conference by the current US Vice President Jack D. Vance. However, the issue of Greenland introduced tensions into the event, as did the serious crisis within NATO, with the US government continuing to discredit it, and Trump’s relative “disengagement” from the war in Ukraine. The threats and violations of the “rules-based world order” by the White House in Latin America and the Caribbean did not merit the attention of the Conference: the attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, the intensification of the blockade against Cuba to genocidal levels, and the permanent extortion applied against the countries of the region—especially Mexico and Colombia—did not disturb the ethical parameters of the participants in the conclave. Probably because, according to these heirs of old European colonialism, Latin America and the Caribbean have what they deserve. That is what their silence seems to imply. The Russophobic note of the Conference was provided by Estonia’s Kaja Kallas, the current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (such is her pompous title), who continues to propose new and tougher sanctions against Russia and, at the same time, greater military involvement by NATO in Ukraine. Kallas represents the hardline wing of the “European hawks” against Russia, promoting an aggressive and warmongering policy that could unfortunately lead to the outbreak of a third (and final) world war.
Source: Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English