Munich Security Conference 2025 and the Disagreement Between the Two Factions of the West
(Translated)
By Asaad Mansour

The 61st Munich Security Conference took place in the German city of Munich on February 14-16, 2025. One of its most striking features was the evident disagreement between the two factions of the West: the American and the European. So, what is the purpose of this conference, and why is this division occurring?

Let’s take a quick look at this conference. The conference evolved from the “International Military Studies Meeting / Munich Military Studies Conference,” which was founded in 1963 by Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, a German publisher who was an officer in World War II, and his family were opponents of Hitler and the war, whilst he was accused of trying to assassinate Hitler in 1944, being a resistance fighter from the von Stauffenberg circle.

Germany supported his idea because its system had transformed after the war. It no longer sought wars and instead aimed to regain its status as a major power through means other than military might, which it was prohibited from developing in a way that could threaten others. Those who took power in Germany after the war, under American dominance, most notably Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the government formed in 1949, were fundamentally opposed to Hitler and wars against others.

Since 1963, the conference has been held annually in February, except in 1991 due to the First Gulf War, and in 1997 due to the retirement of its founder. It has since been convened under the banner of discussing current and future security challenges. Leaders, officials, and representatives from 60 countries, sometimes more, sometimes less, attend, giving it a global character. Major powers have flocked to it to impose their views on others and defend their policies on an international stage, as presenting ideas and defending them, before the world, greatly influences global public opinion.

At the 1992 session, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western nations expressed relief at the demise of this enemy and its threat. However, the dominant power, America, declared during that session that the new enemy of the West was political Islam. Colonialist Western states, historically hostile to Islam, embraced this notion. This came from the mouth of then-U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who later became vice president under George W. Bush and one of the architects of the aggression against Islamic lands to implement the colonialist “Greater Middle East Project,” starting with Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

In the 2003 session, a clash emerged between the two Western factions when France and Germany opposed the war that America sought to wage on Iraq, forming an opposing axis with Russia. A similar rift occurred in the 2015 session when the U.S., through then-Secretary of State John Kerry, called for arming Ukraine to prepare for war with Russia, a move opposed by France and Germany, who negotiated the Minsk Agreement with Russia in Ukraine’s presence.

In the 2025 session, discord flared again between America and Europe. Germany sought to present itself as a strong leader of Europe in confronting America. In his opening speech, the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated, “Germany will remain a reliable partner. You can count on us!... To our partners and friends, I say this clearly: German foreign and security policy will remain European, transatlantic and multilateral... we will continue to pursue our interests, seek shared solutions and broaden our international partnerships And let me be absolutely clear: Europe plays a pivotal role in our policy.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance responded, attacking the Europeans by saying, “In Washington there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square agree or disagree.” He added, “Dismissing people, dismissing their concerns ... shutting down media, shutting down elections ... protects nothing.

It is the most surefire way to destroy democracy ... If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.” He asserted that America, under Trump’s leadership, was the world’s police chief, threatening Europe with discipline if it rebelled against American obedience, belittling it to keep it under U.S. dominance. He added, “The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China. It's not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

Vance defended Germany’s Nazi-aligned Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, met with its leader Alice Weidel, and criticized the firewalls erected around it due to other parties’ refusal to cooperate with it. In an insult to German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, he did not meet with him, signaling support for Nazism.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius retorted that his criticism of freedom of expression in Europe is “unacceptable.”

Conference Chair Christoph Heusgen expressed sorrow, tearfully stating at the closing, “This conference started as a transatlantic conference. After Vice President Vance’s speech on Friday, we should fear that our common value base is no longer so common anymore.” He wept over the ruins of Western unity, as they are bickering siblings each pursuing their own interests and trying to impose dominance over the others. The shared capitalist ideas that once bound them have faded, as their materialistic, utilitarian basis inherently fosters conflict among its adherents and has failed to meld them into one.

The freedom of expression the American defends is freedom for extremist Nazi nationalists, not for others like Muslims, whose voices are silenced and who are barred from expressing their Islamic thoughts. They must speak as the West dictates, with no right to criticize its ideas, policies, or support for the usurping Jewish entity.

America wants to keep Europe under its hegemony, and it sabotages its attempts to get rid of this hegemony, so it works to encourage differences in it, and supports extremist nationalist parties that oppose the European Union to reach power and withdraw from the Union, as happened in Britain, and thus it can destroy it and its European currency, which competes with the dollar. There was previously suspicion that America was encouraging these Nazi movements in Germany in particular, and Europe in general, and that it was against the European Union, so we conducted analyses to confirm that. But now all of that has been confirmed by Trump's public policy.

The two factions of the West, America and Europe, are the main causes of the world’s misery, as they have ignited major wars between themselves and in the world, and have pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, colonialism of peoples and sucking their blood, especially colonialism of the lands of the Muslims, tearing them apart, plundering their wealth, and waging wars against them and within them, and they still hold the reins of affairs in them and fight over them.

Thus, this conference is not held to establish peace through dialogue but serves as an arena where major powers, particularly America and Europe, clash.

Muslims must monitor the disputes within and between the West’s factions, leveraging them to break free from its hegemony and colonialism, and establish their state, the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate), that, InshaAllah, will rid the world of their evils.