BERLIN, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The latest Munich Security Report has sounded the alarm over the systematic dismantling of the international order and the rise of what it calls "wrecking-ball politics."
The annual report was published on Monday ahead of the 62nd Munich Security Conference (MSC), scheduled to take place from Friday to Sunday in Munich, southern Germany.
In the report's foreword, MSC Chair Wolfgang Ischinger noted that, in the conference's recent history, rarely have so many fundamental questions been on the table at the same time regarding European security, the resilience of the transatlantic partnership, and the international community's ability to manage an increasingly contested world.
The report emphasized that the "recalibration" of U.S. foreign policy has triggered dynamics whose full consequences are only beginning to emerge, stating that the implications of this shift are "hard to overstate."
The title of the report, "Under Destruction," reflects the organizers' concerns about the current international system. It noted that more than 80 years after its construction began, the post-war international order is now "under destruction."
According to the report, the current U.S. administration has renounced core elements of the existing international order, a posture manifested in withdrawals from key frameworks such as the WHO and the Paris Agreement on climate change.
In the economic sphere, the report noted that Washington has "openly dispensed with the rules of global trade it once helped create."
Following U.S. President Donald Trump's declaration of "Liberation Day" on April 2, 2025, Washington imposed "vast, non-WTO-compliant tariffs on nearly every country," the report said, adding that the average rate has risen to 15 percent -- a level last seen in the 1930s and nearly eight times higher than the previous year.
The report also detailed a shift toward "wrecking-ball politics," where some leaders prefer "obliteration over reform" and "symbolic acts of destruction over the slow work of institutional adaptation."
It warned that this approach could lead to a world shaped by "transactional deals rather than principled cooperation," adding that the resulting transatlantic rift has left the United States "unrecognizable" to most Europeans.
According to Ischinger, more than 50 members of the U.S. Congress are expected to attend the upcoming three-day event in Munich. ■