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Hello from Munich, where your Situation Report coauthors are just barely hanging on after an arduous journey plagued by flight cancellations due to the Lufthansa strike<\/a>. We\u2019ll be on the ground at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel for this year\u2019s Munich Security Conference (say hello if you are, too, especially if you\u2019re NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte) with special daily pop-up editions of SitRep through Sunday.<\/p>\n Alright, here\u2019s what\u2019s on tap for today. Europe plays defense<\/strong> as Washington waffles, a Munich check-in on the state of cyber<\/strong>, and some weird things<\/strong> happening in El Paso<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s SitRep lead author is trying not to read too much into the first advertisement<\/a> he saw as he exited Munich Airport this morning championing \u201cEUROPEAN DEFENSE\u201d in all caps and promoting a new autonomous drone partnership between German defense tech firms Helsing and Hensoldt. The companies\u2019 joint announcement<\/a> is even more on the nose, touting \u201csovereign German and European technology architecture\u201d that will \u201csustainably strengthen the defense capabilities and technological leadership of a democratic Europe through purely national technology and supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n Self-reliance is clearly on European minds heading into this week\u2019s conference\u2014exactly one year after U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance shocked conference attendees in Munich with a lecture<\/a> on sovereignty and defense burdens, and weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump shocked many of those same attendees in Davos, Switzerland, with a speech calling for the U.S. takeover of Greenland (before NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte engineered a d\u00e9tente<\/a>).<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s threat to the territorial integrity of a NATO ally (Denmark, which controls Greenland) is the \u201cfinal nail in the coffin\u201d for the alliance, said retired Gen. Richard Shirreff, who served as NATO\u2019s deputy supreme allied commander Europe from 2011 to 2014. \u201cBy doing that, Trump has blown a hole through the concept of collective defense,\u201d Shirreff said, \u201cand in doing so it forces Canada and Europe to effectively say to America: \u2018We want to maintain links with you, but we have to Europeanize and Canadianize the NATO alliance.\u2019\u201d (Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has made it clear<\/a> that he shares at least a version of that sentiment.)<\/p>\n Officials in Munich on Thursday didn\u2019t quite go that far, but self-sufficiency was the name of the game. \u201cWe must be united,\u201d Andrius Kubilius, the European commissioner for defense and space, told the Munich Security Breakfast\u2014a conference event that aims to connect European defense start-ups with investors. \u201cWe have continental scale, a European scale,\u201d Kubilius added. \u201cWe need to learn how to use this scale for massive innovation in defense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPrimary responsibility.\u201d<\/strong> The shift is also being spurred on actively by Washington, as evidenced by a speech<\/a> by U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby\u2014standing in for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth\u2014at a NATO defense ministers\u2019 meeting in Brussels on Thursday. \u201cEurope must assume primary responsibility for its own conventional defense,\u201d Colby said, adding that the United States will \u201ccontinue to press, respectfully but firmly and insistently, for a rebalancing of roles and burdens\u201d within the alliance. (He did, however, make clear that the U.S. nuclear umbrella over Europe would remain intact.)<\/p>\n Some of that rebalancing is already happening, with NATO announcing<\/a> earlier this week that the United Kingdom and Italy will take over the joint force commands in Norfolk, Virginia, and Naples, Italy, respectively, from the United States.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s exceedingly clear that the trans-Atlantic relationship is in a state of flux, and the next three days in Munich are likely to produce a mix of lamenting what is lost and figuring out what comes next. The 2026 Munich Security Report<\/a>\u2014a customary precursor to the conference\u2014leans heavily into that theme, writing that \u201cthe world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe most powerful of those who take the axe to existing rules and institutions is US President Donald Trump,\u201d the report says, adding that in some cases such as heightened NATO defense spending targets, that upheaval has produced important results. \u201cYet, it is unclear whether destruction is really clearing the ground for policies that will increase the security, prosperity, and freedom of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n A U.S. federal court has sided with Sen. Mark Kelly in his fight against Hegseth, who had sought to demote Kelly from his rank as Navy captain and cut his retirement pay in retaliation for Kelly appearing in a video with several other lawmakers urging U.S. troops not to follow unlawful orders. Hegseth and the Pentagon \u201chave trampled on Senator Kelly\u2019s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees,\u201d the judge said in a Thursday ruling<\/a> that temporarily blocked Hegseth from taking action against Kelly.<\/p>\n What should be high on your radar, if it isn\u2019t already.<\/em><\/p>\n El Paso fiasco.<\/strong> Something strange happened in the city of El Paso, Texas, this week\u2014we\u2019re just not exactly sure why.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we do know: Late on Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) suddenly announced El Paso\u2019s airspace would be closed for 10 days. The highly unusual move raised alarm bells, and not just because of the implications for commercial and emergency air travel in the area. The FAA reportedly made this decision unilaterally, without warning other parts of the federal government or local government officials. On Wednesday morning, the pause was lifted at the urging of the White House.<\/p>\n But the explanations that have emerged since are all over the place, and don\u2019t exactly paint a picture of a government that\u2019s in sync.<\/p>\n The Trump administration announced that the temporary closure was due to a Mexican drug cartel drone incursion. \u201cThe threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region,\u201d Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said<\/a> in a post on X on Wednesday morning, adding that normal flights would resume. It\u2019s not unusual for cartel drones to fly into U.S. airspace, but other accounts have undermined the Trump administration\u2019s public claims about what occurred.<\/p>\n Some reports<\/a> suggest that the airspace closure was a result of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials firing an anti-drone laser that was loaned by the Pentagon without giving the FAA a proper heads-up. What\u2019s more, these reports say that CBP officials fired the laser at a party balloon they mistook for a drone. Throwing further doubt on the Trump administration\u2019s official account, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at a press conference on Wednesday said<\/a> her government had no information regarding drone activity at the border.<\/p>\n As things stand, it\u2019s hard to know precisely what happened\u2014and lawmakers in Washington are pushing for more answers. \u201cThe conflicting accounts coming from different parts of the federal government only deepen public concern and raise serious questions about coordination and decision-making,\u201d Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\nTrans-Atlantic Trepidation<\/h3>\n
Let\u2019s Get Personnel<\/h3>\n
On the Button<\/h3>\n
Snapshot<\/h3>\n