Context
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The latest edition of Munich Security Conference (MSC) a week ago assumed significance as it was here that Ukrainian President appealed for help ahead of Russian invasion.
About Munich Security Conference
- The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since 1963.
Illustration: R Rajesh - It brings together heads of state, diplomats and business leaders from the world’s leading democracies for three days of meetings and presentations.
- The primary objective of the MSC was to make sense of the international affairs in an age when weapons of mass destruction had become part of the game.
- It is the world’s largest gathering of its kind.
- Over the past four decades the MSC has become the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers.
- When the MSC was founded in 1963, it was envisioned as a way for leaders, mostly from the West, to discuss threats and dangers in an informal setting.
- Most of the concerns at the time stemmed from the Cold War, which had dominated world politics for nearly a half-century.
- Over time, the conference evolved into a platform for airing grievances and workshopping political agreements, some of them outside the realm of East-West relations.
- Over its sixty years of existence, the MSC would address the threats like terrorism, religious fanaticism, cyber warfare, electronic intelligence and emerge as the ultimate platform for policy makers to exchange ideas in a friendly atmosphere.
- In recent years, the conference has often invited leaders from authoritarian countries, and even adversaries, to speak.
- The latest edition of the MSC also highlighted the complexities of the new powers like India and China. While the pressure grew on India to oppose Russia’s belligerent designs on Ukraine, External Affairs Minister of India chose to refer to the “complex” history of the crisis and avoided siding with the West.
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