55th Annual Munich Security
Conference
Collapse of Cold War
Arrangements and Liberal Democracy
Creates Crisis at War Conference
- Nick Lin -
Anti-war demonstration in Munich, February 16, 2019, at the site
of the
warmongering Munich
Security Conference.
The 55th annual Munich Security Conference (MSC)
is
being
held February 15-17. It follows a related conference,
the Munich Cyber Security Conference
(MCSC), held on February 14. The MSC claims to be "the world's
leading
forum for
debating international security policy." Participants are said to
include some 450 "high-profile and senior decision-makers as well
as thought-leaders from around the world, including heads of
state, ministers, leading personalities of international and
non-governmental organizations, high-ranking representatives of
industry, media, academia, and civil society." This is similar to
the Halifax International Security Forum's sanitized portrayal of
itself, which covers up its aggressive nature. The warmongering
objectives of the MSC are not lost on the German people and other
peoples of
Europe, who are again holding anti-war actions throughout the
conference, as they have done in previous years.
The MSC was founded on the basis of a Cold War
outlook,
initially by the U.S., Germany and other NATO members, to advance
U.S.
and NATO interests, especially opposition to the peoples'
striving for
empowerment. Its participants typically include many responsible
for
imperialist aggression and war crimes. According to this outlook,
the
peoples of the world and their striving for justice, national
liberation and the flourishing of the human person are not even
considered, even though it is working peoples of the world and
their
striving that are the decisive factor which opens the path of
societies
to progress.
"We don't want your wars!"
Preoccupation with Lack of Reliable Partner in
the
Trump
Presidency to Uphold Liberal Democracy
Each year, the MSC issues a security report, in
which
it details what it considers to be important issues and how NATO
and
allied countries should respond. The title of this year's report,
"The
Great Puzzle: Who Will Pick Up the Pieces?" conveys the MSC's
dismay at
the state of the world today, where the old Cold War arrangements
and
liberal democratic institutions can no longer be made to
function. As
one reads the report, it becomes clear the crisis facing the
European
wing of NATO is that it considers it no longer has a reliable
partner
in the U.S. under the current Trump administration, and therefore
has
to "pick up the pieces."
In the report's foreword, MSC Chairman Wolfgang
Ischinger puts the finger on the U.S. President's attempts to
create a
tri-polar axis which leaves Europe out of the equation. He states
that
"the world is not just witnessing a series of smaller and bigger
crises, but that there is a more fundamental problem. Indeed, we
seem
to be experiencing a reshuffling of core pieces of the
international
order. A new era of great power competition is unfolding between
the
United States, China, and Russia, accompanied by a certain
leadership
vacuum in what has become known as the liberal international
order."
Others are
quoted in the report expressing opinions in a similar vein:
"Germany's four-term Chancellor Angela Merkel
concedes
that 'the well-tried and familiar framework of order is under
strong
pressure at the moment.' According to Foreign Minister Heiko
Maas, the situation is even worse: 'That world order that we once
knew, had become accustomed to, and sometimes felt comfortable in
-- this world order no longer exists.' Many also believe that
what is known as the liberal international order has been damaged
to such a degree that it is hard to return to the status quo
ante. As French President Emmanuel Macron puts it, this is not
'an
interlude in history before things return to normal [...]
because we are currently experiencing a crisis of the
effectiveness and principles of our contemporary world order,
which will not be able to get back on track or return to how it
functioned before.'"
The report is based on a pretense that the
international order subject to globalization is somehow
democratic and
rules-based if only the Trump administration would play fair. The
"leadership vacuum" mentioned in the foreword refers to the U.S.
under
the Trump presidency, which is explicitly and repeatedly referred
to in
the report:
- "[...] the U.S. effort to rally 'the noble
nations of
the
world to build a new liberal order' and to oppose authoritarian
great powers would be far more credible if President Trump and
his administration did not display an irritating enthusiasm for
strongmen across the globe."
- "The disdain for international institutions and
agreements
has repeatedly pitted the U.S. against its major allies in recent
years. What these allies see as the only way to tackle global
problems, Trump rejects as 'the ideology of globalism.'"
- "In this context, both analysts and
policymakers have
called on the major liberal-democratic allies of the United
States to compensate for the lack of stable U.S. leadership.
Countries usually mentioned are the other members of the G7 --
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom --
as well as Australia, South Korea, and the European Union as a
whole."
Those the MSC calls on to step up in the absence
of
that U.S. are also mired in their own crisis and the worldwide
crisis
of what are called the liberal democratic institutions.
Take
Canada for example, where the cartel political parties block the
people
from having any say in the affairs which affect them, and more
and more
the government is one of police powers.
MSC Stuck in the End-of-History Outlook
The MSC, NATO and others are part of the forces
that
subscribe to the end-of-history thesis, which considers liberal
democracy to be the final stage of human society. It is in crisis
because real life reveals that liberal democracy, which is
supposed to underpin the international system, has failed. Even
recognizing this much, it still sees no other option but to try
to reanimate liberal democracy, because the end-of-history
outlook provides no alternatives. In its report, the MSC writes:
"This is thus the great puzzle: Are we witnessing
a
great
reshuffling of the pieces of the international order? Will the
defenders of the post-1945 international order be successful in
preserving its main elements and piecing at least some of them
back together? Or will the world continue to move closer to, as
former Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has warned of, a
'perfect
storm,' the cumulative effect of several crises
happening simultaneously that could destroy the old
international system before we have even begun to build a new
one?" (TML emphasis.)
The MSC's desperation is such that it goes so far
as to
write:
"In his Prison Notebooks, the Italian
philosopher
Antonio Gramsci wrote: 'The crisis consists precisely in the fact
that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this
interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.' In a way,
this is an apt description of world order today."
Quoting Gramsci does not save the MSC and the
virulently anti-communist forces it represents from their dilemma
because they are not in the service of the New. The crucial part
of the
analysis, which is properly attributed to Karl Marx, not Gramsci,
is
that the working class must constitute the nation and vest
sovereignty
in the people. It must complete the democratic revolution so as
to
eliminate the role of privilege once and for all in
decision-making.
This the MSC dares not say.
Promotion of Foreign Interference and Imperialist
Aggression
Much of the MSC's report is preoccupied with the
role
of China and Russia in the world today which makes its
preoccupation
essentially no different to those of the Trump administration.
China's
activities for trade and foreign relations, such as the Belt and
Road
Initiative, are deemed to encroach on NATO territory and
constitute a
threat to NATO influence and hegemony over Europe and Asia as
well as
Africa.
Likewise, the overwhelming decision of the people
of
Crimea
to join Russia is turned on its head and called "Russia's
annexation of Crimea," with hysteria created about "Russian
troops" being spotted operating in Crimea.
The governments of other countries, such as Syria
and
Venezuela, are similarly slandered, to justify foreign
interference and
regime change. So too, the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America
and
the Caribbean are viewed with condescension as "fair game." In
this
regard, the MSC reveals its concern to effectively compete with
the
U.S.
interests to acquire the spoils for the narrow imperialist
private interests it seeks to serve against those of the U.S.
imperialists.
In other words, all that do not or cannot be made
to
submit
to U.S. or NATO dictate, are singled out by the MSC.
What is clear is that the world faces great
dangers
during
this period when the old arrangements have degenerated, and the
working peoples of the world and their organizations continue
their striving to bring into being new human-centred
arrangements that put an end to exploitation, oppression and war.
Bodies like the MSC cannot provide an answer, and are in fact
part of what is blocking the new from coming into being and pose
a real danger to those forces working for social progress. Only
the working people can provide the renewal that humanity
requires.
 
"Ban arms exports, " "No German weapons for the war on
Yemen."
Protestors carry banners that point out that war makes refugees,
and
call on people to stand up for the rights of refugees to make
Munich a
secure city.
"Atomic weapons out of Germany!"
"No mid-range missiles in Europe!"
Note
MSC Public Events
On the eve of the conference, the MSC said
it
would hold a public discussion event titled "#MSC2019 -- From
Cold War
to Star Wars: How to
Deal With the Arms Race to Space?" at Hotel Bayerischer Hof, the
venue
of the Munich
Security Conference.
Other public sessions
include:
- NATO Defense Contributions: Is Germany
Stepping Up?
- A British Perspective: Decoding Politics
in
the Age of Brexit -- with
Tony Blair
- Fascism: A Warning -- An Evening with
Madeleine Albright
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