The impact of the events of 1989–1991 on Western thinking is such that the forty-odd post-WWII years appear as an aberration, fortunately overcome—which can simply be ignored. As if peace in Europe were an absolute given, rather than ensured by complex mechanisms for maintaining security and arms control that required constant dialogue with the other pole, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Anton Bespalov.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph on April 1, Donald Trump threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO unless its European allies provided military assistance to Washington in lifting the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Though this threat is highly unlikely to be carried out—for both legal and practical reasons—it has become another stark symptom of the deepening crisis in transatlantic relations since Trump’s return to the White House.
This crisis lies at the heart of the 2026 Munich Security Conference report. Published just two weeks before the start of the US-Israeli operation against Iran, the document offers perhaps the most concentrated expression of European anxiety over Washington’s apparent retreat from the principles of liberal internationalism and its deliberate dismantling of the previous world order—a policy the report dubs “wrecking-ball politics.” Although the image of an actual wrecking ball has become less common in modern construction, its cultural resonance remains powerful, instantly evoking the idea of reckless destruction. In the report’s narrative, President Trump is tearing down what took decades to build, leaving uncertain whether the West can ever restore it.
However, this dramatic portrayal of a “collapse of the world order” overlooks one fundamental point: the liberal order that the authors mourn never truly existed as a universal system. True, the modern international system emerged after 1945—a point the authors rightly emphasize—but the report presents one part of that system as if it represented the whole. The three pillars of the order that Trump is attacking with his “wrecking-ball” are described in the report as follows:
• The long-standing US commitment to multilateral cooperation, international institutions, and the international rule of law.
• The United States’ long-standing support for an open world economy and free trade.
• The promotion of liberal-democratic values and cooperation among liberal democracies.
This idealised reading of post-WWII history leaves no space for inconvenient realities: America’s wars of aggression, forcible regime changes, and support for dictatorships—provided they served US interests. In a sense, the authors’ selective perspective is understandable: when Washington employed questionable methods, it did so primarily against countries outside the Western core. However, there were also instances of “friendly fire”: the most notable, though far from the only, example was the intense US pressure on Japan in the 1980s to prevent it from overtaking America as the world’s leading economy. What shocks Europeans today is that Trump appears willing, when American interests demand it, to inflict collateral damage on Europe itself, the second—and once the central—pillar of the Western world.
The reasons Trump doesn’t make concessions to his closest allies are manifold: cold fiscal calculation (why have rich, developed countries long underinvested in defence while sheltering under the American security umbrella?), ideological hostility toward European leaders whom he views as allies of the Democratic Party, including its ‘woke’ wing, and—perhaps most critically—a failure to see how Europe can meaningfully assist the United States in its strategic competition with China. Hence Trump’s disregard for the three aforementioned pillars of the Western liberal world order—it was precisely this commitment to them that led to the emergence of a formidable rival. The openness of the global economy, the inclusion of China in world markets with the expectation that it will always be content with the role of the “world’s factory” without showing geopolitical ambitions— all this produced the very challenge Washington now confronts.
From the standpoint of preserving US global primacy—the consistent priority of every American administration—China today represents a more serious threat than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. The USSR invested heavily in military deterrence and achieved significant success in that domain, but it ultimately lost the economic competition. Its late-1980s decision to end confrontation with the West removed the spectre of nuclear war but also eliminated the Soviet Union’s role as the second pole in a bipolar world—the very position China is now approaching. In the Soviet case, this role was determined primarily by the military threat it posed to the US, a threat its economy, science sector, and education were designed to sustain. However, its voluntary withdrawal from military and political confrontation did not usher in an era of prosperity and cooperation; it had catastrophic consequences for the Soviet state, which became an important lesson for modern China. Unlike the Soviet system, China’s global influence is rooted in its economy, the development of which was ensured by the country’s inclusion in global markets without the burden of military costs. Beijing only began building serious military capabilities after becoming an economic and technological powerhouse with a growing middle class.
The Soviet Union’s historically unprecedented retreat culminating in the end of its existence explains the seemingly surprising absence of references to the bipolar system of the Cold War era in the Munich report. In its authors’ understanding, the system that emerged after 1945 within the Western world automatically expanded to the entire globe after the end of the inter-bloc confrontation. The events of 1989–1991 so profoundly shaped Western thinking that the preceding forty years now appear as a temporary aberration best forgotten.
The Munich report’s authors display such strong faith in the progressive and universal nature of the post-1945 liberal order that they not only ignore this inconvenient truth but also invoke the concept of a “post-Cold War cooperative security order”—which, they claim, Russia is now destroying. From Russia’s perspective—and that of many Western analysts—such an order never existed: the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance, which unilaterally assumed the mission of ensuring security in Europe, was anything but a manifestation of a cooperative approach. The “cooperative security architecture,” mentioned elsewhere as a given of recent decades, is precisely what Moscow has unsuccessfully called for year after year, declaring the inadmissibility of unilateral action.
Meanwhile, public opinion data included in the report reveal a telling trend: citizens of BRICS countries (India, China, South Africa, and Brazil) show the strongest willingness to engage actively in solving global problems. However, this readiness does not extend to adopting a Western-centric worldview, no matter how hard Europe tries to win the Global South over to its side amid growing tensions with the United States. This is evidenced, for instance, by widespread reluctance in these countries to view Russia as a threat to the world order (Chinese respondents are the least inclined to do so).
Europe’s de facto justification of Israel’s actions in Gaza has already severely damaged its reputation across much of the Global South. Its broader attempt to lead a global effort to restore the previous order, which it believes is being undermined by both Russia and Trump’s “wrecking ball”, appears increasingly doomed. The current situation surrounding Iran presents Europe with a clear dilemma: a more principled and decisive stance in line with its professed values could enhance its credibility as an independent global actor. Yet so far, Europe has offered little more than mild criticism in some capitals and symbolic gestures—most notably Spain’s decision to ban American aircraft involved in operations against Iran from using its airspace. Any truly effective resistance to US policy, however, would inevitably deepen the rift in transatlantic relations—a prospect Europe desperately wishes to avoid.
The new global reality is becoming impossible to ignore. Judging by the Munich Security Report, however, Europe is not yet conceptually prepared to face it.
