Since 1963, the Munich Security Conference has brought together leaders from NATO and EU countries and from around the world every February to debate the defence of Europe, transatlantic relations and major international security issues.
Three AFCEA members attended the 2026 edition: Alexandre Vulic, Élie Tenenbaum and Camille Grand. Alexandre Vulic, a diplomat specialising in defence issues in multinational settings, shares the key takeaways.
1. The change in the transatlantic relationship – not to say the rupture – introduced at the February 2025 conference, notably by the speech of US Vice President James D. Vance, was confirmed by the speech of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the messages of Elbridge A. Colby, US Under Secretary of War, in line with the new American security and defence strategies: from “burden sharing” to “burden shifting”. Many European Allies nevertheless want to see it as a message of reassurance and pretend to see in it a certain normalisation promising renewed cooperation.
President Macron’s message on the need for Europeans to redouble their efforts with self-confidence was all the more important in this context: this is no time for illusions, but for consolidating a responsible and autonomous European path to meet the demands of the new relationship and ensure its stabilisation. Beyond the applause, however, this speech is probably not enough to convince people that it will be put into practice, at a time when France’s room for manoeuvre is seen as limited and constrained by the 2027 political deadline.
All in all, although it endures, the transatlantic bond is changing structurally, and interests, well or poorly understood, now take priority over values – whereas the opposite is true in Europe. This is also why there is no cause to rejoice at the Alliance’s evolution since President Trump entered the arena: the unity of the West, which has value in itself, is no longer self-evident and, judging by Rubio, who nonetheless invokes it, no longer rests either on a common purpose or on power in the service of peace and security. We will miss these two foundations all the more since it is hard to see how appeasing Russia through a hypothetical ceasefire agreement in Ukraine could persuade China to be more circumspect and moderate in Asia. The opposite seems more likely.
2. The complementarity between Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s speech and President Macron’s was all the more noticed and appreciated as it signals a mutual Franco-German understanding at a time of challenges and slowdown for a relationship that remains structural for Europe: Federal Chancellor Merz acknowledged the end of yesterday’s transatlantic world, while the French President set out the path of a Europe of power in the making, building on what it has achieved. The European role of French deterrence attracted renewed interest, and Emmanuel Macron’s announced speech on 27 February will be eagerly awaited. Nuances and differences over the industrial conditions of defence ambitions nevertheless remain intact and clearly sensitive, as shown by the prevailing scepticism about the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) and the way the Germans seem to consider that France no longer has the means to impose its conditions on their own industry, given France’s lower investment capacity.
3. And what about the world’s hotspots? Facts are stubborn: Ukraine remained the dominant topic, despite the Munich Security Conference’s ambition to foster a global dialogue and a discussion on China. President Volodymyr Zelensky stayed for 36 hours, gave a widely noted speech and received the Ewald von Kleist Award. His delegation made full use of the platform it was offered – with an entire building (“Ukraine House”) hosting an exhibition on the role of defence technology innovation against Russia, notably Ukrainian-made drones, the pursuit of peace through strength and the “defence of defence”. A way of sending a double message: without a just peace and a sufficiently credible deterrent against Moscow, danger and uncertainty in Europe will remain such that it will be difficult, on both sides of the Atlantic, to mobilise all the energy and resources needed to face other challenges; and without sufficient innovation and adaptation by NATO Allies to the new methods of confrontation seen in Ukraine, the danger is likely to grow, as the lessons of the Alliance’s Hedgehog 2025 exercise recently revealed.
On the Middle East, the presence of Reza Pahlavi (accompanied by demonstrations of support from the Iranian diaspora in central Munich) was noted.
This Munich Security Conference also gave unprecedented space to defence technology innovation, with a great many side events devoted to the subject. The Ukrainians highlighted this in particular.
Bavaria, home to a third of Germany’s defence industry and positioning itself to attract German and European investment, has just inaugurated a defence innovation centre near Munich, which could foreshadow a German or even European defence innovation agency.
We see this as a promising avenue: prioritising Franco-German cooperation on defence technology innovation could make it possible to commit further on a necessary and less politicised subject than FCAS. It is also, starting now, an invitation to bring more French companies into a German defence ecosystem that is growing and innovating all the faster because it relies on the response of innovative industries.
Alexandre Vulic
This article reflects only the views of its author. Article originally published in French on LinkedIn on 19 February 2026.
This article was translated from French by Claude (AI). In case of any discrepancy, the French version prevails.
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