FEBRUARY 13, 2023

BY ALFRED DE ZAYAS

Photo credit: TASS

Sixteen years ago, on 10 February 2007, Russian President Putin delivered a landmark speech at the Munich Security Conference, a clear statement of post- Cold War Russian foreign policy, focusing on the need for multilateralism and international solidarity. The mainstream media did not give much visibility to Putin’s security analysis in 2007, and still fails to do so. Yet, it is worth our while to revisit that speech.

In 2007 I did recognize the implications of Putin’s speech and even distributed the text to my students at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. Sometimes I distribute the Putin speech together with President John F. Kennedy’s brilliant commencement address at American University[1]on 10 June 1963, an appeal to rationality that is as relevant today as it was then. If everyone would read it and implement what is in there, we…