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The Munich Security Conference from 13 to 15 February heard several European leaders talk about increasing the role of nuclear weapons in their military strategies, with only the Spanish Prime Minister rejecting this.
ICAN’s Executive Director, Melissa Parke, was also at the conference and in meetings with governments and others, made the case that more nuclear weapons threaten the people of Europe and cannot protect them.
Here, she tells us what she took away from the conference.
The UN was established to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. Yet, we find ourselves 80 years later closer to global war than we have been in decades. A global war in the nuclear age will likely bring about the end of all complex life on earth.
As I just witnessed at the 2026 Munich Security Conference, the hawkish politicians, military planners, arms manufacturers, conservative think tankers (more tank than think) and defence journalists advocating confrontation, militarisation and nuclear weapons proliferation live in an elite echo chamber where nuclear deterrence has been elevated from a theory to a cult-like ideology, and its failure can never be contemplated.
There was a giant poster ad from the German defence technology company Helsing on a building opposite the MSC venue showing a stealth bomber on the tarmac, with missiles and drones lined up beside it. The headline said: ‘WE GOT THIS".
Melissa Parke with Lebanese Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam and with with Rwandan Interior Minister, Vincent Biruta.
Given the historical record, it should not be necessary to say that the supposedly responsible management of genocidal capability has always been an illusion.
We know nuclear deterrence has failed many times in the past and humanity has survived only due to luck or an individual’s restraint. The so-called ‘modernisation’ of nuclear weapons, which is compressing decision times and increasing ambiguity, makes a catastrophic failure more likely. It also signals the normalisation of perpetual nuclear threat and the diversion of vast resources from constructive potential to destructive capacity, a grave injustice against current and future generations.
In Munich, Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, for instance, emphasised the need for Europe to rethink defence and not rely solely on the U.S., indicating a tone of urgency and readiness for military action. President Macron of France confirmed he has been in discussions with Mr Merz on using French nuclear weapons to defend Germany and other European countries.
In contrast, a more hopeful tone was provided by Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who explicitly warned against nuclear rearmament and framed military escalation as dangerous rather than reassuring. He argued that massive spending on nuclear arsenals won’t stop threats like Putin’s aggression and urged restraint. Sánchez called for a “moral rearmament” focused on strengthening values and collective European security rather than piling up weapons, pushing for a true European army and greater strategic autonomy without sliding into new arms races.
Fortunately, globally, the pro-deterrence view is a minority view. Because of powerful voices of people at the frontlines across the globe, we now have the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) that provides a pathway under international law for nuclear-armed states to disarm in a timebound verifiable manner, and that will support communities and environments harmed by nuclear weapons. More than half the world's governments have already signed up to the TPNW and more will be joining in the near future.
While I did not have the opportunity to meet PM Sanchez in Munich, I did meet with other political leaders who support the TPNW. This bodes well for our universalisation efforts in the lead up to the TPNW Review Conference at the end of November.
I also had an ally at the MSC in Dr Inga Blum, Co-President of IPPNW, with whom I joined in meeting other supporters of the TPNW, including the wonderful Mary Robinson and Helen Clarke of The Elders, and in asking uncomfortable questions to others at various MSC events.
Our 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning campaign at ICAN, which IPPNW is part of, is working with governments, the UN, ICRC, parliamentarians, scientists, cities, financial institutions, academics, affected communities, and artists to build the global coalition for nuclear disarmament and turn the tide against war. War is not inevitable. It is a choice.
Overall, it was unsettling to see the European security elite shift towards nuclear weapons, but also hopeful that there remains significant resistance to this discourse from some European countries and among the public, and of course from the majority of the world’s countries that have joined the TPNW.
Author Yuval Noah Harari talks about the power of human imagination to redirect our ingenuity from self-destruction to self-creation. The TPNW is an example of such self-creation, where most nations are choosing dialogue over confrontation, diplomacy over militarisation and disarmament over proliferation. This is the opportunity for humanity to avoid self-destruction and create a new future that respects the earth and each other.