History of the Munich Security Conference

Since its inception in the fall of 1963, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) has changed in many ways – not just in terms of its name. Yet in some ways, it has not changed at all. The main rationale behind the first conferences – then called Internationale Wehrkunde-Begegnung – remains true today. Munich was, is, and will continue to be an independent venue for policymakers and experts for open and constructive discussions about the most pressing security issues of the day – and of the future.

For the first decades of the conference, the participants did not hail from as many countries as they do today – and that was entirely by design. Back then, the audience was relatively small, not exceeding a few dozen people. While "Wehrkunde" was an international conference from the very beginning, it was first of all a venue where German participants met their counterparts from their most important ally, the United States, but also from other NATO member states. As a result, the conference has often been dubbed a "transatlantic family meeting." Debates in Munich concentrated on Western policy within the overarching framework of the Cold War confrontation. Just like today, these intra-alliance debates were far from uncontroversial, at times even heated.

Over the years, as the number and variety of important players in international security increased, the circle of conference participants continued to grow wider. At the same time, the core of the conference will always be transatlantic. Today, we welcome high-ranking participants from key rising powers, such as China, Brazil, and India. In addition, in recent years, both the Arab uprisings and the debate about Iran’s nuclear ambitions brought leaders from the Middle East to Munich, sparking both controversial arguments and the opportunity for further dialogue on and off the conference stage. The audience today is not only more diverse in terms of geography, it also mirrors the broader understanding of security itself. Now, when the participants gather at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, you still see military leaders—and rightly so. But you also see CEOs, human rights activists, environmentalists, and other leaders representing global civil society.

It is a testament to the extraordinary work and personality of Ewald von Kleist, who sadly passed away in March of 2013, that it developed and kept such a high reputation throughout the decades. The Cold War, the conflict that dominated the conference for many years, is long gone, but that does not mean that the Munich Security Conference’s reason to exist has become obsolete. Quite the contrary: it may well be even more important in an era in which global governance in general, and international security in particular, is certain to become messier and more difficult to manage, and in which the transatlantic partners will have to both stick together as well as reach out to new partners.