The African Union (AU) biannual summit and the Munich Security Conference both took place over Valentine’s weekend – traditional time for coupling – when much of the world is rapidly uncoupling, with implications yet to be recognised for the world and Africa’s place in it.

Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a speech at Davos heralded as capturing the global moment, described the uncoupling as a rupture with the old order, outlining a defensive way forward for so-called middle powers. US President Donald Trump’s response was a predictably incoherent social media lashing backed by fresh tariffs on Canada.

Yet the rupture continues. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech to Munich continued Vice President JD Vance’s warning last year of Europe’s so-called “civilizational erasure”, though couched in deceptively soothing tones that the US remains “a child of Europe”.

The tantrum became apparent when Rubio left Munich to stand beside Viktor Orbán, the EU’s head of State most singled out for his corruption and Russia’s trojan horse ally within the EU. Simultaneously, Trump’s two de facto Foreign Secretaries, whom he seems to trust more than Rubio – envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner – headed to Geneva to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into ceding territory to Russia, including, reportedly, territory that Russia has not won on the battlefield.

Should Europe, the so-called coalition of the willing (Germany, France, and the UK), not be able to prevent the US from forcing Ukraine to give territory to Russia, it would mark a return to nineteenth-century imperialism, where might is right and where protections of international law and multilateral institutions like the United Nations (UN) amount to nothing.

As geopolitics shifted in Munich, Addis Ababa hosted the first of the AU’s two biannual meetings. While Carney’s speech captured the urgency of the moment, the AU’s concluding statement missed it. It spoke of peace and security, its opposition to conflicts, terrorism and violent extremism, unconstitutional changes of government, and humanitarian crises in parts of the continent, governance reforms, G20 engagement, historical justice, and a call to describe colonisation, slavery and deportations as “acts of genocide against peoples of Africa” but lacked urgency.

Noble indeed – but as one Zambian political activist tweeted: “We host too many summits like AU in Africa. We fly to this and that country for summits . . . just to discuss [sic] same stuff we’ve been discussing for last 50 years with zero implementation desire in sight!”

The real geopolitical risk was apparent on the fringes of the AU summit, where the overspill of the military rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is starting to impact regional politics. The UAE is levering military support and multibillion investments in the Sahel, Sudan and Somalia to expand influence over the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland highlights Somalia’s fragility as powers jostle amid the vacuum created by the US’s new hemisphere-based security policy.

In a ‘might is right’ era, multilateral institutions like the UN and the AU wield less influence, leaving mineral-rich nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)  vulnerable to control by proxies or outright takeover. Already, despite a Trump-brokered deal with Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and the DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi, a UN report says Rwanda-backed M23 rebels are tightening their grip on huge swathes of eastern DRC. Without a new hegemon to fill the vacuum left by the US administration’s America First policy, “negotiated” redrawing of borders like South Sudan and Eritrea after referendums are likely to become a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, alongside the uncoupling, there is reforming – especially around defence – as Europe realises it must react to the instability of realignment. The US threatening fellow Nato member Greenland with invasion sent Europe scrambling to delay the treaty’s collapse while simultaneously facing up to its apparent collapse.

This instability looks set to define the next five years and is already driving demand for Africa’s strategic minerals. Adding to the energy transition, electric vehicles and the long-term needs of the AI revolution, Nato members have pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defence, while the EU plans to allocate €800-billion by 2030. To “buy European” and so reduce dependence on US technology, EU countries have joined the race – currently dominated by China – to access Africa’s strategic minerals, reflected by the strong German presence at this month’s African Mining Indaba in Cape Town.

EU defence spending will immediately benefit mineral-rich countries but will also provide an opportunity for Africa’s key tech/engineering and embryonic defence industry hubs to supply Europe in quickly ramping up its defence manufacturing and systems.

Africa’s leaders often speak of raw-material beneficiation, but only South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, and Morocco currently have even modest defence industries. In a ‘might is right’ era, reliance on foreign arms leaves smaller African nations extra-vulnerable, and metal-rich but weak countries like Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali become easy prey for the powerful.