Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2015

Vahideh Ahmadi

A lot of high ranking officials from several countries participated in the 51st MSC, 6-8 February 2015 held in Germany. They discussed the world strategic issues at this Conference. In fact, the main topic of the Conference was the crisis in Ukraine, however, some other issues like Iran’s nuclear talks, the ISIS threat and the Middle East developments were tackled at the Conference.
In fact, the Ukraine crisis and Russian Federation’s behavior were the dominant topics. At two panels, Hybrid and Information warfare were discussed while paying due attention to Russian activities in advancing a conventional war, deploying so called “Little Green Soldiers” in Eastern Ukraine and cyber propaganda.
The ISIS threat was considered a global security threat and many of the participants insisted on the necessity of a military reaction and political coalition against it. However, due to divergent interests, no idea was raised to cope with this group.
It seems that the sensible atmosphere of Iran’s nuclear talks led the speakers, in spite of the previous Conferences, to have an optimistic overview of the issue and hopes to settle it.
Positions of the Iranian Foreign Minister on final win-win result and implicit acknowledgement of the need to flexibility at this stage, has been a diplomatic position taking into account responsibly of the other party, in case of a failure in talks.
The internal gaps and pressure of the cons at the Iranian Parliament was one of the ambiguities that the Iranian delegation explained about it. Foreign Minister Zarif modified a perception on existence of an internal gap and fractional dispute in the public opinion and assumed the critics in the Parliament as part of a natural trend of democracy at the country.