Christoph Heusgen

What needs to happen for Germany to play a new, active role in the world? Christoph Heusgen, former security advisor to Angela Merkel and UN ambassador from 2017 to 2022, gets to the bottom of this question.
In view of the change of era brought about by the Ukraine war, he argues for a new German course in foreign policy. In doing so, he looks at the challenges and course set under Angela Merkel’s chancellorship – and at the same time sketches the picture of a future active policy. We need to change the way we think about foreign policy: Because the system competition is no longer between West and East, but between force and law. And Germany must assume a self-confident leadership role in this struggle.

Dr. Christoph Heusgen, born in 1955, has been Chairman of the Munich Security Conference since 2022. From 2005, he was the foreign and security policy advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel and, from 2017 to 2021, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations. Since 2020, he has been Honorary Professor of Foreign Policy and Diplomacy at the University of St. Gallen.