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Good afternoon from the team at Resilience Media.
Running through the rain between the many side events at Munich Security Conference, the mood in the city is as gloomy as the weather.
The startup founders, investors, and defence industry people who have descended on Munich for MSC are not feeling good about the geopolitical climate and they aren’t being quiet about it. My (American) accent elicits side-eyes and vague gesturing when the conversation shifts to the US’ stance toward NATO. Another American said to me “There are a lot of angry Germans.” And who can blame them? This week’s newsletter is dedicated to Europe, which is recommitting to itself after being knocked sideways by the Trump administration.
John Biggs, Resilience Media Editor at Large dives into MSC’s annual report, which details the destructive politics threatening the long-standing world order. John writes,
“First, we learn that the world is in a bad way. The report doesn’t pull any punches. Starting with the image of Trump tearing down the East Wing of the White House, it goes on to associate this destructive style with the new American outlook in general. The snark, shall we say, is prominent.”
More is excerpted below in our Dispatches from Munich section.
On a related note, NATO Innovation Fund and Dealroom released the ‘State of Defense, Security, and Resilience Tech Report’ which showed that European companies in this sector have raised an astonishing $8.7B in 2025. The activity was based mainly in Munich and the DSR category represented 46% of all deep tech funding in 2026. Read Ingrid Lunden’s piece on the report here.
It was a big week for funding announcements, with Constellr, Hypersonica, and Stanhope AI raising a collective 67M Euros. Elsewhere on Resilience Media:
- Battlefield innovation drives surge in cyber attacks on defence contractors
- Dronamics partners with HENSOLDT to build a heavy defence drone with 24-hour endurance
- Germany awards Stark and Helsing contracts to deliver next-generation strike drones
- Monitoring the next theatre: Acua Ocean and the case for persistent naval drones
- Estonia needs to stay on guard, says Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service
We also announced our 2026 Event Calendar last week. Tickets are already going fast for RC Warsaw, RC Copenhagen, and our flagship event Resilience Conference London. We’re about to start announcing programming for all three, plus more announcements, so get your Early Bird ticket before they sell out. I’ll be back in your inboxes next week.
-Leslie Hitchcock, co-founder and Publisher, Resilience Media
Wrecking-ball politics and the end of mutually-assured stability
By: John Biggs, Editor at Large
In a new report from the Munich Security Conference, the message is blunt: wrecking-ball politics, led by a belligerent American regime, is changing the face of Europe’s defence.
“However one may assess the foreign policy of the current US administration, one thing is clear: It is already changing the world, and it has triggered dynamics whose full consequences are only beginning to emerge,” writes Wolfgang Ischinger in the foreword. Among other things, Ischinger is a former German ambassador to the US, and the previous chairman of the MSC, taking place this week. His experiences inform his words. He frames this year’s report around a basic break with what US allies assumed for generations: not only American power, but a shared set of principles behind the post-1945 order. That shared base now looks far less certain, and the report argues the implications for Europe, and for transatlantic cooperation, are hard to overstate.
“The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics,” the report notes, with sweeping destruction, not careful reform, becoming the default move. More than 80 years after construction began, the US-led post-1945 international order is now “under destruction,” with the current US administration presented as the most prominent actor promising to break free of the old order’s constraints and rebuild something stronger on the other side.
The report goes further and makes the political claim explicit: in many Western societies, forces “favoring destruction over reform” are gaining momentum.
“In all G7 countries surveyed for the Munich Security Index 2026, only a tiny proportion of respondents say that their current government’s policies will make future generations better off. And both domestically and internationally, political structures are now perceived as overly bureaucratized and judicialized, impossible to reform and adapt to better serve the people’s needs. The result is a new climate in which those who employ bulldozers, wrecking balls, and chainsaws are often cautiously admired if not openly celebrated,” the report’s authors write in a stunning confirmation of the current crop of micro-despots and populists that are popping up like toadstools throughout Europe.
Further, where this turns into a European problem is clear. The report says the US administration’s turn away from core parts of the existing order is already hitting Europe in visible ways. It points to a Russia that is “regaining tactical initiative” along parts of the front in Ukraine, and intensifying hybrid warfare across Europe, while Washington’s gradual retreat, wavering support for Ukraine, and even threatening rhetoric on Greenland heighten Europe’s sense of insecurity.
In that context, the report says the US approach to European security is now seen as volatile, shifting between reassurance, conditionality, and coercion, leaving European states trying to keep Washington engaged while also preparing for greater autonomy. Further, this is a call to action. The report calls for a rearming and rebuilding of Europe’s defences, and that requires shared technology that can handle both peace and, when the time comes, war.
A Sad World
First, we learn that the world is in a bad way. The report doesn’t pull any punches. Starting with the image of Trump tearing down the East Wing of the White House, it goes on to associate this destructive style with the new American outlook in general. The snark, shall we say, is prominent.
