February 16, 2026

The Sound of Munich: Autonomy, Anxiety, and the Twilight of Transatlantic Order

By: Richard Fontaine

This article was originally published in War on the Rocks.

Munich was warmer than Washington this weekend, both in weather and in sentiment. Neither development was widely forecast. The sense of crisis in transatlantic relations was plain, especially on the European side, and the world descended on the Bayerischer Hof hotel to sort it all out. At the Munich Security Conference there was beer to drink, brats to eat, statements to make, and bilateral meetings to hold. February’s foreign policy freneticism kicked off in earnest.

If officials on both sides of the Atlantic agree that Europe should become more self-reliant, they also concur on the state of international order. It is, many observed, dead.

And frenetic it was. Bilateral meetings were set at 25 minutes apiece and the most hyperactive delegates kept them shorter than that. Heads of state and foreign ministers mingled while the rest of us were jostled by their security details. One Middle Eastern official suggested a walking meeting. He and I weaved through delegations, passed the smoking section under a light rain, trudged up and down a metal staircase, and finally parted at the elevator. It was actually rather productive.

Read the full article on War on the Rocks.

More from CNAS

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia