Munich in February 2026

Munich in mid-February always has a slightly unreal quality: limousines at the Bayerischer Hof, earnest panels about “order,” and the quiet assumption that the Atlantic is still the spine of the West. This year’s Munich Security Conference (13–15 February 2026) feels different—not because Europe suddenly discovered new ideals, but because it’s starting to doubt an old certainty: that the United States will remain a predictable democratic anchor.

Europe’s language is shifting from reassurance to contingency planning. The Munich Security Report is unusually blunt: the transatlantic relationship is increasingly marked by “conditionality,” and Europe is preparing for greater autonomy while still trying to keep Washington engaged. You can hear it in calls for more European defence capacity—procurement, production, and a security posture that Europe can sustain even if US politics turns alliance commitments into bargaining chips.

The American message in Munich isn’t exactly calming nerves. Secretary of State Marco Rubio presented a worldview that reads as more transactional and power-political, sceptical of multilateral frameworks, and heavy on “terms and leverage.” Even when the conclusion is cooperation, the subtext is clear: partnership, but on American conditions.

Watching this from Aotearoa New Zealand, it’s hard not to feel a familiar chill. Europeans are debating “strategic autonomy” because they fear abandonment. In the Pacific, we’ve been living with a version of that anxiety for years—just under different labels: reliability, deterrence, grey-zone pressure, and the question of whether big powers treat our region as home or as a chessboard.

A less democratic, more authoritarian-leaning United States wouldn’t only unsettle Europe’s defence planning; it would warp the whole Indo-Pacific equation. If Washington grows more comfortable with strongman instincts—rewarding loyalty over law, spectacle over institutions—then alliance commitments start to look less like principles and more like mood. That’s dangerous in a region where credibility is deterrence, and deterrence is often the thin line between stability and miscalculation.

New Zealand still talks about partnership with the US in steady diplomatic language. But “enduring” is exactly what’s being stress-tested. Because if the rules-based order is weakened from within—treated as optional—then Pacific states will feel it first: through coercion, economic pressure, and the slow normalisation of “might makes right.”

Europe is trying to grow up fast. It’s messy, overdue, and necessary. From where I’m standing, the key point isn’t that Europe wants to be more independent of the US. It’s why it feels it has to. And if that reason holds, the consequences won’t stay in conference halls in Bavaria. They’ll wash up on our shores, too.