• Jens Stoltenberg has assumed the role as Chair of the Munich Security Conference following the MSC 2025. He succeeded Christoph Heusgen. 

• Stoltenberg currently serves as Norway’s Minister of Finance. 

• He served as NATO Secretary General from 2014 to 2024 and is a distinguished diplomat with a record of international and domestic achievements in security, defence, climate, energy and economy. 

• He presided over NATO’s largest post-Cold War defence reinforcement, with more forces, increased defenCe spending and four rounds of NATO enlargement.

• Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar met Stoltenberg on the margins of the Munich Security Conference 2025.

• The 61st Munich Security Conference took place from February 14 to 16, 2025 in Munich.

• Hundreds of decision-makers and opinion leaders from different regions of the world discussed the world’s security policy challenges.

• As has been the case for the past six decades, the entire event and all its many components was governed by the Munich Rule: ‘Engage and interact with each other: Don’t lecture or ignore one another’. 

Munich Security Conference (MSC)

• It was first held in 1963. 

• MSC is an independent meeting place for politicians and experts to exchange views on the most important current and future issues of international security policy in an open and constructive manner.

• It is a leading forum for debating international security policy. It is a venue for diplomatic initiatives to address the world's most pressing security concerns.

• It addresses critical global security challenges and regional conflicts.

• Originally established as ‘Wehrkunde’, a private initiative by the founder Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, the conference has become the world’s leading independent forum for international security policy. 

• As its patron for over 30 years, Kleist was instrumental in advancing the transatlantic security dialogue and introducing post-war Germany into NATO and the broader Cold War security order.

• For the first decades of the conference, the participants did not hail from as many countries. While ‘Wehrkunde’ was an international conference from the very beginning, it was first of all a venue where German participants met their counterparts from their most important ally, the United States, but also from other NATO member states. 

• When the Cold War came to an end, it invited participants from countries that had not been part of the Western world before. They made room for participants from Central and Eastern European countries, and also from the Russian Federation.

• Over the years, as the number and variety of important players in international security increased, the circle of conference participants continued to grow wider. At the same time, the core of the conference will always be transatlantic.

• The audience today is not only more diverse in terms of geography, it also mirrors the broader understanding of security itself. 

• The MSC conceives of its conferences as a type of “marketplace of ideas” where initiatives and solutions are developed and opinions are exchanged. It provides a venue for official and non-official diplomatic initiatives and ideas to address the world’s most pressing security concerns. 

• The MSC also offers protected space for informal meetings between officials and thus – as its original motto has it – builds peace through dialogue. 

• In addition to its annual flagship conference, the MSC regularly convenes high-profile events on particular topics and regions and publishes the Munich Security Report, an annual digest of relevant figures, maps, and research on crucial security challenges.

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