Welcome to the first special pop-up edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report at the 2026 Munich Security Conference (MSC), coming to you from the cavernous basement café of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel.
Proceedings have been relatively muted so far (though it is hard to top the fireworks that happened this time last year), but there have been a few pointed words and tense exchanges onstage.
Here’s what’s on tap for today: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz tells the United States that Washington can’t go it alone, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz wants to “Make the U.N. Great Again,” and U.S. Democratic lawmakers come bearing a grim warning.
Facing the Elephant in Munich
Friday marked the first day of the MSC 2026, but a clear theme has already emerged. European leaders are not holding back in assessing that the post-World War II global order is kaput—and they blame U.S. President Donald Trump. While U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s incendiary speech at last year’s conference caught many off guard, Europe is now clear-eyed about where Washington stands with Trump at the helm.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday told the conference that a rules-based world order “no longer exists,” adding that a “deep divide has opened between Europe and the United States.” But Merz also emphasized that the United States and Europe still need each other. “In the era of great-power rivalry, even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone,” he said. “Dear friends, being a part of NATO is not only Europe’s competitive advantage. It’s also the United States’ competitive advantage, so let’s repair and revive trans-Atlantic trust together.”
That message echoed an open letter published on the eve of the conference and signed by every former U.S. ambassador to NATO since 1998, and all but one former NATO supreme allied commander Europe (a role traditionally held by a U.S. general) since 1997. “The U.S. does not maintain a military presence in Europe solely to protect Europeans; it does so to protect American interests,” they wrote, reiterating that the only time the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense clause has ever been invoked was to support the United States after the 9/11 terror attacks. “NATO provides the legal and physical infrastructure for the United States to operate globally.”
Much of what’s been said in Munich so far reflects a growing sentiment across the international community, particularly among key U.S. allies. In Davos, Switzerland, last month, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned of a “rupture in the world order” and called for middle powers to “act together.” Carney, who is absent from this year’s MSC following a mass shooting in Canada, didn’t explicitly mention the United States or Trump in his Davos speech. But the MSC is not avoiding the elephant in the room. Trump’s name is mentioned in the Munich Security Report, which was released earlier this week, a whopping 214 times.
Similarly, Wolfgang Ischinger, the chairman of the conference and a former German ambassador to the United States, in his opening remarks on Friday posed a blunt question to Washington: “Does the Trump administration truly believe that it needs allies and partners, and if so … is Washington actually prepared to treat allies as partners?”
Some European leaders are also embracing the call to become more self-confident and assertive on the world stage. “Join the European Union. Gives you protection,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb—one of the leaders relatively friendlier to Trump—quipped to FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal onstage when asked how countries should deal with U.S. tariffs. On a more serious note, Stubb highlighted the EU’s new trade deals with India and Mercosur as examples of new partnerships forming. “I think what Europe will end up doing is hedging and de-risking a little bit.”
MUNGA. As Europe uses the conference to confront and lament the trans-Atlantic geopolitical breakdown, Trump administration officials in attendance insist that they’re busy fixing a dysfunctional international system.
During a panel discussion on Friday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said that the Trump administration has been “returning the world from the brink” and contended that the global community should welcome efforts to “reform multilateralism.”
Waltz made the case that the United States has been shouldering the burden of a costly global status quo for too long and that it was long past time for this to change. “There is a cost to the status quo, and the status quo was not sustainable anymore,” he said. Waltz, who has been emphasizing the need for reform in the United Nations, also handed out “Make the UN Great Again” hats to fellow panel members.
EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas, who sat on the same panel, emphasized to Waltz that the United States’ status as a superpower depends on support from Europe. “You also need us,” she said.
Lessons from Greenland. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers attending the MSC didn’t hide from the fact that they believe the United States is mired in a deep and dark crisis.
Sen. Chris Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has become an increasingly prominent voice on foreign policy in Washington, told SitRep that Trump has “given the middle finger to Europe.” Murphy said that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle might try to reassure European allies that “we’re still with you, no matter what Trump says,” but he’s not so sure that’s true.
“I don’t think there’s any certainty that the next version of the Republican Party after Donald Trump won’t be as jingoistic, nationalistic, and anti-Europe as this version,” Murphy said. “So, I come to this conference, I think it’s important. But I don’t sugarcoat the trans-Atlantic crisis. Democrats are still committed to the project. Republicans are not, and that’s the reality.”
Murphy said that one of the key points he’s been making in conversations at the conference is his hope that Europe “learns from the Greenland experience.”
“The minute that they [European leaders] started to act and talk tough was the minute that Trump started acting differently, in part because the markets responded. When the market started to believe that there was actually going to be a potential confrontation between Europe and the United States, there was a reaction, and that may have been dispositive on Trump,” Murphy said. “But the green light Europe gave him on Venezuela is what led to the threats on Greenland. I know that they are trying to hold on to a tiger by the tail—that is what we’re trying to do in Congress as well—but I don’t think there’s any benefit that comes from looking the other way as he engages in this unconstitutional military provocation all around the world.”
Hot Mic
SitRep sat down with Fiona Murray, chair of the NATO Innovation Fund, for a conversation on trans-Atlantic defense tech trends.
Murray said the fund, which invests in start-ups from 24 NATO countries (but notably not the United States or Canada yet) is seeing “a real willingness on the part of Europe to step up” and fund companies across the continent. But the question is whether they can put in place the policies to support more investment. “Capital is coming in in anticipation of market opportunities; it’s not just because everyone’s feeling patriotic,” she added.
Murray also weighed in on the challenges Europe faces to de-risk its tech supply chains from China.
“I think in Europe it’s extremely difficult to do that,” she said. “Governments will have to decide whether they want it badly enough to basically pay what I would think of as a resilience premium,” she added. “The rational thing for any company to do is basically find the cheapest, most reliable supplier—if that supplier is in Shenzhen [China], which they often are, then that’s what you do.”
Snapshot
Drones decorated in the colors of the Ukrainian and German flags are pictured at the drone-producing company Quantum Frontline Industries’ production facility in Gilching, Germany, on Feb. 13.Alexandra Beier/AFP via Getty Images
People Watching
SitRep walked past two prominent Californians—Gov. Gavin Newsom and former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the latter of whom was having a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to NATO and the prime minister of Greenland. Newsom was one of two U.S. governors we saw at the Hof (Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was the other).
We also spotted former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and we chatted briefly with Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson.
Put on Your Radar
Key MSC events on Feb. 14 (all times are local to Munich):
9 a.m.: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks.
9:30 a.m.: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks.
10 a.m.: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer speak on a panel about “wielding power in a world in disarray.”
11:45 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Rutte, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, and U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker speak on a panel about “securing long-term support for Ukraine.”
12:30 p.m.: FP hosts the Emerging Threats Forum, featuring U.S. senior Middle East advisor Massad Boulos, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds, and Moldovan Internal Affairs Minister Daniella Misail-Nichitin (as well as your SitRep coauthors).
4 p.m.: FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal interviews U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.
Quote of the Day
“Who gives a shit who owns Greenland? I don’t.”
—U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham at an MSC Politico event.
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