Wrecking-ball politics

Weaponising the world order

With a candour quite remarkable for an organisation that is essentially transatlantic in its orientation, the Munich Security Conference has published an assessment of the Trump administration’s policies in its pre-conference document. The Munich Security Report says the main reason for the United States’ fundamental abandonment of international law lies in America’s political and economic decline. The “post-war world order”, which was originally created under US leadership in line with Washington’s interests, enabled the maintenance of US hegemony first in the West and then, from 1990 onwards, worldwide. But, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, puts it, the existing order no longer allows this dominance to be maintained. The change is rooted in the ability of other states to use the existing order to assert their strengths. This refers in particular to China. As Rubio puts it, the existing order is being “used as a weapon against us”. As it did in 1945, Washington must therefore once again “create a free world out of chaos”. The Munich Security Report adds that the current political upheavals should not be attributed to President Trump’s “personal convictions or his outsized personality”. Ultimately, they serve the interests of the US elites and are possible thanks to the still extraordinary political, military and technological power of the US.[1]

The crisis as a way forward

The Munich Security Report also addresses the question of why the policies of the Trump administration in the United States are met with the same approval we see from large sections of society in Europe that are responding positively to other far-right forces. The paper admits to a deep economic and social crisis in the Western world. For many people, “the existing order is associated with affordability crises, rising inequality, the end of upward social mobility, and stagnating or declining living standards. People’s lives, in short, are no longer improving.” According to a survey conducted on behalf of the Munich Security Conference, a relative majority of the population in Western countries firmly believes that future generations will be worse off as a result of current government policies. In Germany, France and the United Kingdom, this figure is even higher than 50 per cent. By contrast, we find that in India and China 61 and 80 per cent of the population respectively believe that future generations will again be better off. In the West, more and more people believe that their political system is failing them and that governments are no longer able to effect the necessary change of course.

Demolition men

This has created an acceptance of “wrecking-ball politics”, finds the Munich Security Report. There is support for political forces that “promise to free their country from the existing order’s constraints and rebuild a stronger, more prosperous nation.” At the forefront of this movement is the Trump administration. In an interview with the New York Times at the beginning of the year, Donald Trump explicitly stated that he did not feel bound by norms, but only by his “own morality”: “I don’t need international law.”[2] Since then, proponents of international law have no longer been concerned about the problem of double standards in legal compliance; they now fear the emergence of “an order” in which there are no standards at all. The Munich Security Report refers to Trump and other politicians working towards the destruction of standards – such as Argentina’s President Javier Milei – as “demolition men”. They are creating a world “free of international rules”. World regions may “become dominated by great powers rather than being governed by international rules and norms.” We might see a world “shaped by transactional deals rather than principled cooperation, private rather than public interests.” The report might well be referring to the fact that, in the US, the president’s policies can no longer be separated from the real estate and crypto interests of his clan.[3]

Profiteers from a world of rubble

The authors of the Munich Security Report say it is becoming apparent that tearing down all international norms will not “clear the ground for creative construction” of a new order that “ultimately benefits the many”. Rather, it is “simply leaving a world of rubble” that “the most powerful in the international system might be able to exploit for their purposes.” But the weakest will simply be “crushed underneath it”. It was recently revealed that the number of children worldwide who die before their fifth birthday has risen for the first time this century.[4] It is also known that, over the quarter of a century between 2000 and 2024, the richest one per cent of humanity appropriated 41 per cent of newly created wealth, while the poorer half of humanity had to make do with only one per cent. Last year alone, the wealth of the approximately 3,000 billionaires worldwide increased by 16 per cent, according to an Oxfam study. The twelve richest people in the world – ten Americans, one Frenchman and one Spaniard, according to Forbes – owned more than the poorer half of the entire world population.[5] And the wealth gap is still growing – also in Germany, the country with the fourth-highest number of billionaires worldwide.

Government by billionaires

This year’s Munich Security Conference, which begins on Friday, will host a US delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and two billionaires: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Neither holds political office, yet both act as chief negotiators and fixers for the US president in various conflict hotspots. They are members of the Executive Board of the so-called Board of Peace, an organisation subordinate to Trump personally and intended to replace the UN Security Council in future.[6] Witkoff is a longstanding friend of the president, while Kushner is his son-in-law. According to research by the Washington Post, at the end of 2025 – long after the departure of the world’s richest man by far, Elon Musk – the Trump administration itself included twelve billionaires with a combined fortune of 390 billion US dollars.[7]

The Shah’s son

In addition to the US delegation, which also includes several members of Congress, more than sixty heads of state and government and around 100 foreign and defence ministers are expected to attend the Munich Security Conference. Also in attendance will be Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran, who lives in exile in the US. He is a largely unpopular figure among the Iranian opposition, but one whom Western countries – led by the US and Israel – would like to install as the new pro-Western ruler in Tehran. At the beginning of January, Pahlavi called for street protests in Iran. He was backed by announcements from President Trump that the US would intervene in favour of the protestors. When large numbers of regime opponents, and some armed agent provocateurs, took to the streets they were counting on these promises of outside support. Iran’s security forces struck mercilessly, with an unknown number of demonstrators – in five figures according to reports – being killed. Pahlavi and Trump abandoned protesters they had encouraged to face a hail of bullets. Further steps towards regime change in Iran might now be discussed with Pahlavi in Munich.

[1] Zitate hier und im Folgenden aus: Under Destruction. Munich Security Report 2026. Munich, February 2026.

[2] See: A hitman and his accomplice.

[3] Angus Berwick, Eliot Brown: One Generation Runs the Country. The Next Cashed In on Crypto. wsj.com 07.02.2026.

[4] With Child Deaths Projected to Rise for the First Time This Century, Gates Foundation Urges Global Leaders to Target Scarce Resources Where They Save the Most Lives. gatesfoundation.org 03.12.2025.

[5] Mehr Milliardäre – und die werden immer reicher. tagesschau.de 19.01.2026.

[6] See: US billionaires’ drive for world power.

[7] Aaron Schaffer, Clara Ence Morse: Meet the Trump administration’s 12 billionaires. washingtonpost.com 11.12.2025.

[8] See: Der nächste regime change.