Three years ago, in February 2022, the European security elite gathered at the annual Munich Security Conference hoping against hope that the Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s border would not invade. Within days they were scrambling around to find effective responses to Russian aggression. The 2025 conference will be remembered for a different sort of shock, but one which also left them scrambling around for an effective response.
On 14 February, European leaders listened to a lecture from the US vice-president JD Vance about how the internal threats they faced were more serious than those posed by Vladimir Putin, and that they should pay more attention to what the parties on the far right were telling them. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, the new US defence secretary, explained that Europe’s security was no longer a priority for the United States, so they would need to build up their own forces – and with some urgency.
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