Munich Security Report 2024

The Munich Security Report 2024 explores the lose-lose dynamics that are spurred if ever more governments prioritize relative payoffs rather than engage in positive-sum cooperation and invest in an international order that, despite its obvious flaws, can still help grow the proverbial pie for the benefit of all. The report also stimulates the debate on how the transatlantic partners and like-minded states can balance two difficult requirements: bracing for a much more competitive geopolitical environment, where relative-gains thinking is unavoidable, and reviving the type of cooperation without which more inclusive global growth and solutions to pressing global problems can hardly be attained.

Key actors in the transatlantic community, in powerful autocracies, and in the so-called Global South have become dissatisfied with what they perceive to be an unequal distribution of the absolute benefits of the international order. From the perspective of many developing states, the international order has never delivered on its promise to grow the pie for the benefit of all. But as highlighted by data from the Munich Security Index 2024, an exclusive annual index of risk perceptions that the MSC developed together with its partner Kekst CNC, even the traditional guardians of the order are no longer satisfied, as they see their own shares of the pie shrinking.

As more and more states define their success relative to others, a vicious cycle of relative gains thinking, prosperity losses, and growing geopolitical tensions threatens to unroll. The resulting lose-lose dynamics are already unfolding in many policy fields and engulfing various regions. In its chapters, the 2024 edition of the Munich Security Report (MSR) zooms in on four regions and three policy fields where lose-lose dynamics are particularly pronounced, namely Eastern Europe (authored by Nicole Koenig and Leonard Schütte), the Indo-Pacific (by Paula Köhler), the Middle East (by Amadée Mudie-Mantz and Sophie Witte), and the Sahel region (by Isabell Kump) as well as economics (by Leonard Schütte), climate (by Julia Hammelehle), and technology (by Jintro Pauly). The chapters highlight that rather than being resolved, many regional conflicts and crisis are characterized by growing zero-sum dynamics. And rather than reforming the open and rules-based international order so that it better delivers on its promised mutual benefits, the international community is currently moving in the opposite direction.

The transatlantic partners and like-minded states thus face a difficult balancing act. Amid increasing geopolitical rivalry, they must invest in defense and deterrence while selectively restricting the pursuit of mutual benefits to politically like-minded states; yet this must not result in a vicious cycle, where fears of unequal payoffs engulf ever more issues and positive-sum cooperation is limited to fewer and fewer states. Above all, the course corrections must not undermine transatlantic efforts to build stronger partnerships with countries in the Global South and jointly reform the existing order so that it works to the advantage of a much broader global constituency.

Editors‘ note: This revised version of the MSR includes some minor changes compared to the original document. We also had to correct erroneously displayed data on the MSI country pages on “share thinking risk is imminent” and “share feeling unprepared.” The overall index scores were not affected.

The report features a range of exclusive and previously unpublished data. For the MSR 2024, the MSC once more cooperated with a number of institutions, including The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), Global Trade Alert, der International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

With the Munich Security Index (MSI), the MSC and Kekst CNC together have built a data set to explore citizens’ risk perceptions in the G7 and BRICS nations. By combining five metrics – overall risk, potential damage, expected trajectory, perceived imminence, and feelings of preparedness – the core index, underpinned by a survey of 1,000 people per country, provides annual insights into how major countries view risk. With the first edition of the index published in 2021, the index also enables an evaluation of how risk perceptions change over time. Apart from the core index of risks perceptions, the MSI also includes a set of additional questions relevant to security policy that may vary from year to year. Since 2022, the MSC and Kekst CNC have not polled in Russia and instead have polled in Ukraine. For the Munich Security Index 2023, the full index was polled in Ukraine; for the Munich Security Index 2024, a survey with selected questions was conducted in Ukraine.

Following last year’s record-high threat perceptions, the Munich Security Index 2024 registers aggregate decreases in 21 risk indicators, while ten indicators saw overall increases. The threat from Russia and related risks – including the use of nuclear weapons by an aggressor and energy supply disruptions – still rank considerably higher than in 2021, but compared to last year, they have dropped in the risk index. Meanwhile, perceptions of nontraditional risks remain high. People around the world continue to be most concerned about environmental threats, while risk perceptions of mass migration as a result of war or climate change, radical Islamic terrorism, and organized crime have heightened.

The Munich Security Index 2024 is part of the MSR 2024 and is available here.

Since its first edition in 2015, the Munich Security Report (MSR) has compiled data, analyses, and maps to illustrate current security policy issues. The annual flagship report serves as a discussion starter for the Munich Security Conference in February and is targeted at an expert audience as well as the interested public. Special editions of the MSR offer deeper analyses of key actors, regions, or issues.