The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics. Sweeping destruction – rather than careful reforms and policy corrections – is the order of the day.
The Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2026 wrapped up recently, exposing fault lines for the future of global peace and security.
At last year’s MSC event, US Vice President JD Vance harshly criticized Europe‘s immigration policy and regulation of social media. He belittled climate action and promoted Big Tech with statements such as “If American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.” He denounced Germany for shunning the far-right and admonished Europe to invest more in its military.
At this year’s MSC, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated the same MAGA themes but took a more conciliatory approach. Rubio described immigration as a threat to civilization and decried the “climate cult” impacting economic policy.
He took no blame for Trump’s devastating tariff record, saying that Europe and the US had “made mistakes together”. Cautioning Europe to invest in its military, he harshly criticized the United Nations, if not international law in general, warning his European counterparts that the US is “prepared to do this alone.”
Rubio’s carrot-and-stick strategy seemed to have worked. His speech drew praise, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declaring: “[Rubio is] a good friend, a strong ally.”
With friends like that, who needs enemies.
This is the same Rubio who defends the illegal kidnapping of innocent people and sending them to torturous prisons abroad. The same Rubio who wanted to restrict visas for foreign officials he saw as censoring US-based social media platforms. The same Rubio who supports the bulk collection of metadata on private citizens. The same Rubio who scored 0 out of 100 on the diversity-oriented Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard.
Rubio wasn’t always such a hawkish hardliner. It was after becoming Trump’s Secretary of State that Rubio’s ideological flexibility enabled him to champion gutting international aid, colonizing Greenland, invading Venezuela, “owning” Gaza, and other heinous pursuits.
Perhaps it is not surprising that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz used his MSC address to describe US leadership as “challenged, perhaps already lost.”
Read More: JD Vance Slams Europe’s Leaders in Munich Speech
Defense vs. Development
However, there was one point of transatlantic agreement at the MSC: chest-thumping plans for increased military budgets. For example, Germany has already committed to doubling its defense spending by 2029 while the proposed 2027 US defense budget of $1.5 trillion represents a 50% increase from 2026. In fact, all NATO countries are increasing their defense expenditures.
In the words of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, “We must build our hard power, because that is the currency of the age.” But one must ask: What is the exchange rate on that currency?
As military budgets rise, development budgets fall. History has shown that democratic resilience and global stability take a hit when security architectures are monopolized by military spending.
Those consequences were laid bare in the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to US AID in 2025, with disbursements slashed by 50% and the bulk of foreign aid programs terminated. A new study published in The Lancet journal projects that corresponding shortfalls could lead to 9.4 million additional deaths by 2030, with 2.5 million of those deaths children under the age of five.
Further cutbacks to US humanitarian aid are planned for 2026. Meanwhile, Germany has similarly slashed its budget for acute emergency aid by 50%. Other countries are following suit. More cash for weapons and war; less for health clinics, nutrition centers, and support for vulnerable populations.
How does that benefit global security?
As the Ghanaian President John Mahama observed: “This is not merely a funding gap. It is a crisis of imagination, a vacuum of solidarity, and a deep failure of shared responsibility”.
Rise of the Broligarchy
US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also at the recent MSC. On a panel, she linked “extreme levels of income inequality” to social instability and the “billionaire class throwing their weight around in domestic politics and in global politics”.
A salient example is Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire behind PayPal and Palantir Technologies. Specializing in big data analytics, Palantir operates globally in over 50 commercial sectors ranging from financial services to healthcare to manufacturing and energy.
The company has also received billions in government contracts for the Pentagon, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the UK National Health Service; its software is used by Europol and police forces across the EU.
The scope alone raises questions about Big Tech’s consolidated impact on national security, state surveillance, and data privacy.
Read More: Pakistan’s Strategic Importance Highlighted at Munich Security Conference
Thiel appears obsessed with the idea of an Antichrist, which he defines as “an evil king or tyrant or anti-messiah who appears in the end times”. Fascinated by war (“The slogan of the Antichrist is peace and safety”), Thiel has referred to both environmental activist Greta Thunberg and governmental attempts to regulate artificial intelligence as the Antichrist.
Sound familiar? Thiel bankrolled the political rise of JD Vance. Thiel also donated over one million USD to support Trump in 2016 and continues to fund far-right candidates and causes. Thiel dismisses the notion of conflict of interest.
It is worth noting that, along with other tech titans, Thiel has his sights on Greenland. Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have invested in a potentially-lucrative mining company, while Thiel envisions transforming parts of the island into a high-tech Libertarian “freedom city”.
Connecting the Dots
In short, the future of global security cannot be reduced to military expansion. The context is far more complex and urgent. The unity Europe showed at MSC 2026 is both valuable and important.
But the emphasis on increased defense spending must be balanced with heightened efforts for diplomacy and development. Military expenditure must be directly linked to human rights, environmental impact, disarmament, and preventive frameworks.
And if a New World Order really is to be negotiated, as some at the MSC proposed, the process must be inclusive and transparent. Big Tech must be subject to the strictest due diligence and data protection mechanisms, not to mention antitrust laws.
Finally, as noted in the 2025 United Nations report The Security We Need: Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future: “The challenge is to reverse the trends of higher military spending and falling finance for development, and to recommit to multilateralism, integrating peace and development agendas and recalibrating global financial priorities.”
Take note, so-called Board of Peace.
*The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Diplomatic Insight.
Heather Wokusch
Heather Wokusch is an international educator, human rights advocate, and presenter on peace topics. She can be reached at heather@heatherwokusch.com
