At a conference on security fifteen years ago, the Russian president had developed his vision of the world and denounced the unilateralism of the United States.
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It’s the opening on Friday February 18 of the 58th edition of the Munich Security Conference. This forum brings together world leaders every year to discuss major collective security issues. This year 2022, Munich will notably welcome American Vice-President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. No Russian speaker has been announced in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis between Russia and the West.
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Fifteen years ago, almost to the day, it was a Russian who made an impression. Vladimir Putin gave a speech at this conference that is remembered by all diplomats around the world. The Russian president developed his vision of the world as he saw it, and as he wanted it to be. A speech heralding the following years and the crisis that the world is currently experiencing.
When he took the rostrum in Munich in February 2007, Vladimir Putin was a president completing his second and, it is believed, last term. He warns from the outset that he will avoid polite formulas and, under the eyes of the dumbfounded audience, launches a full-scale attack on American hegemony: “What is a unipolar world? It is a single center of power, a single center of force, a single center of decision. It is the world of a single master, a single sovereign.”
“I believe that in the contemporary world, the unipolar model is not only inadmissible but also impossible.”
Vladimir PoutineFebruary 10, 2007, at the Munich Security Conference
In the room, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the diplomats break down. The Russian president develops his vision of security in Europe: “It seems obvious to me that the enlargement of NATO has nothing to do with the modernization of the alliance or with security in Europe. On the contrary, it is a provocation which undermines mutual trust and we can legitimately ask ourselves against whom this enlargement is directed.” On that day in 2007, Vladimir Putin laid down the principles that have guided Russian diplomacy ever since. At the time, however, this discourse was quickly evacuated by Western leaders. As if it had not existed, it is nevertheless more topical than ever.