When he died in 2013, obituaries published in newspapers about Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist described him as the last of the German officers who were involved in the conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler in the final phase of the Second World War. The leader of the plot, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, recruited him a few months before July 1944, the date of the failed attack on the Führer.
Like many of the officers who rebelled against Hitler, Von Kleist belonged to an influential Prussian family with a military tradition. His father, also active against Nazism, was executed near the end of the war. But he managed to escape (for lack of evidence?) and was sent to the front, against the Soviets, surviving. After the Nazi surrender, in a new rebuilt Germany, he said he believed he had escaped the death penalty because no one reported him to the Gestapo.
Now, this courageous German, who lived through the tragedy that is war, created in 1963 what we know today as the Munich Security Conference. The idea would be to discuss how to maintain peace, and the security of the West, in that era of the Cold War.
Six decades later, the Conference, held at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, remains an important moment in international debate and, over the years, has opened up to global participation. Vladimir Putin even spoke in Munich, with an audience of senior European and American officials listening to the Russian president.
The session that begins this week, on the eve of the 4th anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, takes place, however, in a once again divided world, but much more complex than during the Cold War. But to prove that it was not once again a session of NATO and allies, Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Minister, will be one of the speakers.
In the memory of many participants will still be the criticism of the Europeans, at the 2025 Conference, by the American vice-president, JD Vance. Various criticisms, but with great impact, especially the pressure for greater military spending from NATO’s European partners, as President Donald Trump continued to do, and was assumed in 2025 at the Hague Summit.
But if the tensions between the United States and European countries, over issues such as Greenland, and the geopolitical interest for Americans in the gigantic island that belongs to Denmark, are important, and generate some doubts about the cohesion of NATO, the truth is that the major issue related to international security continues to be the war in Ukraine.
Trump’s attempts to convince Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to reach a peace agreement clash with continued Russian attacks and the Ukrainian president’s refusal to give in to the Russian president’s territorial demands. And, in fact, there is little ground for an understanding, with Ukraine wanting security guarantees from the Americans and Europeans before admitting any negotiations with Russia.
Another important point of tension continues to be the issue of Taiwan. China threatens reunification by force, and the defense commitments of the United States with the rebellious and now democratic Chinese island since 1949, raise fears of a war in the Pacific which, according to all analyses, would be even more serious, and destabilizing for the world, than the war in Eastern Europe that has lasted since 2022. Hence the significance of the presence of the head of Chinese Diplomacy in Munich, a sign that there are other ways to deal with the Taiwanese issue other than the military one, as long as independence is not encouraged.
A delegation from Kuomintangthe nationalist party that lost the Chinese civil war against the communists in 1949 and is now the Taiwanese opposition, visited China a few days ago, defending the need for dialogue and irritating the Taipei authorities, who denounce Chinese threats and constant military intimidation maneuvers around the island. All this tension in the Taiwan Strait is agitating East Asia, to the point that Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, has made statements about the country’s possible involvement in the event of a conflict and continues to increase defense spending.
From the Middle East to the forgotten but no less lethal conflicts in Africa, passing through the main areas of tension between the great powers, the world is therefore very dangerous. Paulo Rangel is scheduled to be present in Munich and it is a good thing that the Minister of Foreign Affairs will listen (and speak), as much of what will happen in the southern German city will inevitably bring warnings to Portugal, just think about the military investment effort already undertaken for the next decade.
Von Kleist left several legacies: that of the example of courage is one, and always very prominent; Having created this Security Conference is also to be applauded.
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