Aftershock


U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s bombshell speech at the Munich Security Conference, or MSC, sent tremors through global development circles, a key insider says. Ignoring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vance attacked European democracies, aligning with far-right narratives.

At a Devex Pro event, Michael Werz, MSC’s senior adviser for North America and multilateral affairs, called it a historic moment: “There was a lot of stubbornness, a lot of attitude of ‘we’re not going to bend our knee,’” he said — referring to conversations he overheard and discussions in development, climate, and international finance meetings that followed last Friday’s speech. Behind the scenes, leaders scrambled to counter Vance’s stance, discussing new alliances — possibly with South Africa, Brazil, and India — to “stabilize the global system.”

One European attendee put it bluntly: “So the Americans tried to denazify the Europeans after ‘45, and now they’re trying to renazify the Europeans?”

Werz warned that if the USAID funding freeze continues, “we will reach a point of no return relatively quickly.” He also called for rebranding military budgets as “unified security budgets” to support development and security together.

While some hard-line figures still dismiss development’s role in security — “they say we don't want to have a conversation with tree huggers and do-gooders” — Werz insisted they are now “a minority.” He argued for framing issues like gender equality in economic terms, noting most smallholder farmers ensuring food security are women.

MSC, once a backroom military forum of “elderly white men smoking cigarettes,” now grapples with modern threats — climate, food security, and AI. The fallout from Vance’s speech may reshape the future of global cooperation, writes my colleague Rob Merrick.

Read: ‘We're not going to bend our knee’— how aid leaders reacted to VP