As Western leaders gathered in Munich over the past three days, President Vladimir V. Putin had a message for them: Nothing they’ve done so far—sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment—would change his intentions to disrupt today’s world Series.
Russia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, capturing the devastated town of Avdiivka, at a huge human cost on both sides. war. The suspicious death of Alexei Navalny in a remote Arctic prison has made it increasingly clear that Mr Putin will tolerate no dissent as the election approaches.
And the US discovery, revealed in recent days, that Mr Putin may be planning to plant a nuclear weapon in space – a bomb designed to obliterate the web of global communications if Mr Putin pushes too far – has been a powerful a reminder of his ability to counterattack his opponents with the asymmetric weapons that remain a key source of his power.
In Munich, the mood was as anxious as it was noncommittal, as leaders faced confrontations they had not anticipated. Warnings about Mr Putin’s possible next moves were mixed with growing concerns in Europe that he could soon be abandoned by the United States, the sole power that has been at the core of its defense strategy for 75 years.
Barely an hour passed at the Munich Security Conference in which the discussion did not turn to the question of whether Congress would fail to find a way to fund new weapons for Ukraine, and if so, how long the Ukrainians could hold out. And while Donald Trump’s name was rarely mentioned, the prospect of whether he would follow through on his threats to pull out of NATO and let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” with allies he has deemed inadequate hangs over much of dialogue.
However, European leaders also seemed to realize how slow they had reacted to the new realities. European plans to rebuild their own forces for a new era of confrontation were moving in the right direction, one leader after another insisted, but then added that it would take five years or more – time they may not have if Russia overwhelms the Ukraine and Mr. Trump undermine the alliance.
The sluggish mood contrasts sharply with just a year ago, when many of the same participants — intelligence chiefs and diplomats, oligarchs and analysts — believed Russia might be on the brink of a strategic defeat in Ukraine. There was talk of how many months it might take to drive the Russians back to the borders that existed before their invasion on February 24, 2022. Now that optimism seemed premature at best, faintly delusional at worst.
Nikolai Denkof, Bulgaria’s prime minister, argued that Europeans should learn three lessons from the cascade of problems. The war in Ukraine was not just about the gray areas between Europe and Russia, he argued, but “whether the democratic world that we value can be defeated, and that is now well understood in Europe.”
Second, European nations have realized they must combine their forces in military, not just economic, efforts to create their own deterrent, he said. And third, they had to separate Ukraine’s immediate munitions and air defense needs from long-term strategic goals.
But given the imperialist rhetoric of Russia’s leaders, Mr. Denkof said, “long-term in this case means three to five and at most 10 years — it’s really urgent.”
US officials came up with the familiar reassurance that Washington’s leadership and commitment remained unchanged. But they could not outline a plan of action for Ukraine when Congress was still withholding funds for weapons, and they struggled to explain how they would achieve a lasting peace after the war in Gaza.
At the Bayerischer Hof hotel, the scene where Mr Putin warned in 2007 that NATO’s eastern expansion was a threat to Russia, Mr Navalny’s widow made an emotional appearance on Thursday hours after her husband’s death, reminding attendees that Mr. Putin would “take responsibility” for it.
But there has been little discussion of what the West might do — nearly all available sanctions have been imposed, and it was unclear whether the United States and Europeans would be motivated to freeze the roughly $300 billion in assets that Russia illegally left in the foreign before the invasion. When a senior US official was asked how the United States would implement Mr Biden’s 2021 pledge of “catastrophic consequences” for Russia if Mr Navalny died in prison — a statement made in Mr Putin’s presence at a meeting in Geneva— the official shrugged.
Some of the attendees found the leaders’ pledges uninspiring, said Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s Institute of International Affairs. “Kamala Harris empty, Scholz tired, Zelensky tired,” he said of the US vice president, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Lots of words, no concrete commitments.”
“I feel overwhelmed and somewhat disappointed” by the debate here, said Steven E. Sokol, president of the American Council on Germany. “There was a lack of urgency and a lack of clarity about the way forward, and I didn’t see a strong show of European solidarity.” He and others noted that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, did not attend.
Most striking in the Russia debate was the widespread acknowledgment that Europe’s military modernization plans, first announced nearly two decades ago, were moving too slowly to match the threat Russia now poses.
“European defense was a possibility before, but now it is a necessity,” said Claudio Graziano, a retired Italian general and former president of the European Union’s Military Commission. But saying the right words is not the same as doing what they demand.
Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, along with a number of defense and intelligence officials, repeatedly referred to recent intelligence conclusions that in three to five years Mr. Putin may try to test NATO’s credibility by attacking one of the countries bordering Russia, probably a small Baltic nation.
But the warning didn’t seem to prompt much urgent discussion about how to prepare for that possibility. The conference celebrated the fact that now two-thirds of alliance members have met the goal of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense — up from just a few nations 10 years ago. However, some recognized that the goal is now well out of date and immediately spoke of political obstacles to more spending.
Even Mr. Stoltenberg warned that Europe remains dependent on the United States and its nuclear umbrella, and that other NATO countries could not fill the gap if the United States continued to withhold military aid to Ukraine.
But the prospect of less American commitment to NATO as the United States turned to other challenges from China or the Middle East was unnerving.
“We need to achieve more” in Europe, Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, told the conference. But when pressed on whether his country’s military spending should approach 4% of German economic output, he was reluctant to commit, given that this is the first year in decades that Berlin will spend the NATO target of 2% on the army.
“We might get to 3 percent or maybe even 3.5 percent,” he finally said. “It depends on what’s going on in the world.” When his boss, Mr Scholz, took to the stage, he said “Europeans must do much more for our security, now and in the future”, but stopped short of specifics. He said he was “urgently campaigning” in other European capitals to boost military spending.
But the fundamental disconnect was still evident: When Europeans thought Russia would integrate into European institutions, they stopped planning and spending for the possibility that they would be wrong. And when Russia’s attitude changed, they didn’t react.
“It’s 30 years of underinvestment coming home,” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst, who called it “les trente paresseuses” — the 30 lazy years of post-Cold War peace, as opposed to the 30 glorious years that they followed. WORLD WAR II.
Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, said Europe must strengthen its defenses “because what really provokes an aggressor is weakness.” Then Mr. Putin might risk attacking a country like his in an attempt to break up NATO. “But if we do more on our defense, it will act as a deterrent. People around Putin would say that, you know, you can’t win. Don’t take this on.”
What was important for Europeans to remember was that this hot war in Ukraine was close and could spread quickly, Ms Callas said. “So if you think you’re far, you’re not far. It can go very, very fast.”
Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of embattled Ukraine, was blunt. “I think our friends and partners have been too late to wake up their own defense industries,” he said. “And we will pay with our lives throughout 2024 to give your defense industries time to ramp up production.”
