Highland Institute Security Forum

Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan closed the chapter on World War II. The fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War. For a brief, heady moment, history itself seemed to pause.

Davos became the temple of that illusion. Global elites flew in on private jets to praise cooperation, carbon credits, and frictionless markets. Why build in America if China could do it cheaper? Why harden borders if globalization promised perpetual peace?

That premise is now shattered.

Europe underfunded its defense and outsourced its energy to Russia. NATO became a shield taken for granted. Then came Crimea. Then Ukraine. Sanctions replaced symposiums. Supply chains became weapons. Markets bent to geopolitics.

Last week in Munich, Western heads of state, generals, intelligence chiefs, and defense ministers gathered not to optimize trade but to confront force with force. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech made clear: the post–Cold War holiday is over. America must build a new arsenal of democracy for an AI-enabled battlefield.

If Munich has replaced Davos as the symbolic forum of our time, we must ask a harder question: where will we think seriously about the architecture of the next order? As defense budgets swell—America alone contemplating levels approaching $1.5 trillion, with Europe and Israel following suit—the stakes are civilizational.

Highland Institute’s Security Forum intends to engage this moment.

Under the leadership of member Mike Shanley, we’re convening the many voices of policymakers, military leaders, technologists, and defense innovators to examine what deterrence means in an age of AI, space warfare, cyber conflict, and the proposed Golden Dome.

Another hinge in history is turning. Let us be prepared. Peace is preserved not by wishful thinking, but by strength wisely deployed.

— Sina.

For Another Angle, read How The US Can Lead Again by Kubs Lalchandani, Esq.