Cornelius AdebahrNonresident fellow at Carnegie Europe
Judging by the country’s first-ever security strategy unveiled last week, the answer must be a full-throated “yes, no, maybe, but little by little.”
The war in Ukraine has certainly had more of an impact on German threat perceptions than the longer-than-expected process of interministerial coordination and public consultation that had been agreed to already prior to Russia’s invasion. That said, the document has left many experts disenchanted for its lack of prioritization of goals as well as operational clarity. Instead, it basically reaffirms Berlin’s recent course correction while suggesting that the government would simply have to do better what it already does for things to improve.
So yes, Germany is slowly getting more serious than before about security, but not in the right sense. Despite the integrated security hallmark, it is tilted toward old-fashioned military responses interspersed with references to domestic issues like critical infrastructure and societal resilience—and a single mention of artificial intelligence.
Instead of only upping the defensive, it could have also suggested ways to minimize threats from abroad through comprehensive and far-sighted policies. Moreover—and this is the “maybe” part—the strategy speaks more of institutions than of how Germany intends to work with partner countries.
Finally, and crucially, it is bereft of a narrative to engage the German public in a debate around how the world has changed and why their country needs to adapt. Without a new societal consensus on what security means today, Germany cannot become the serious actor it needs to be.
Thorsten BennerCo-founder and director of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi)
The National Security Strategy is an ambitious document that has one cardinal flaw. The basic message is “Germany has to invest a lot more on security and it will do so without increasing Germany’s overall budget.” That is a recipe for failure.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner insisted on this formula, even pushing an ode to the debt brake in the document. In reality, as I outlined last year, the debt brake is a security risk. Much needed investment in security and transformation risks losing out in increasingly fierce budget fights in the coming years.
Right now, there is no political majority in parliament for either of the three conceivable routes to increase military, foreign & security spending in line with the security strategy’s ambitions: cutting social spending, doing away with the debt brake or higher taxes. Finding a way out of this fiscal deadlock should be an urgent concern also for security policy wonks, for otherwise Germany does not stand any chance of making the necessary investments in security—the need for which is only set to grow in the coming years as the United States will shoulder less of burden for European security.
Marie CrossChair of the Future of Europe Group at the Institute of International and European Affairs, Dublin
The evolution of German security and defense policy can be compared to a giant tanker turning at sea. It takes time. Significant events have influenced Berlin to project itself more firmly into the security and defense area. They include:
- the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the shock and failure of economic diplomacy hit German self-confidence and with it the understanding that only military strength counts against Russian aggression;
- the fear that the United States may, in the future, loosen its ties with NATO;
- the withdrawal of the UK from the EU and therefore from one wing of European defense;
- the queue of EU applicants, mostly on Germany’s borders and all with serious security problems;
- the increase in military expenditure in Japan and tensions with China; and
- the need to convince the German public that the country has the strategy and capacity to protect its population.
The National Security Strategy is an important signal of intent. The statement “we are strengthening the Bundeswehr as a cornerstone of defence in Europe” is quite a commitment and a difficult one to retreat from.
The answer to the question is “yes”; maybe not at the pace all would wish, but the direction is clear.
Anja DahlmannHead of Berlin Office and researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg
Germany’s first national security strategy strikes a balanced and compromising tone. It defines values, interest, and instruments to varying degrees of detail. Those expecting a bold declaration of a new leading role in international security or unexpected twists may be disappointed.
Nonetheless, the strategy encompasses a comprehensive notion of security, while also addressing hard-security concerns. While far from perfect, it is a timely and appropriate response to interconnected crises.
A prime example of this balanced approach is the take on arms control. The strategy identifies deterrence and defense capabilities as the foundation of Germany’s security while acknowledging arms control as an integral component of robustness (Wehrhaftigkeit). This recognition is well founded as arms control mitigates risks of conflict escalation, enhances confidence in own capabilities and the adversary’s actions, and promotes human security.
The national security strategy acknowledges that arms control is not made with friends. Hence, it includes the commitment to nuclear sharing as well as the goal of Global Zero and highlights transparency measures if they are reciprocal.
Nevertheless, the government should provide concrete proposals outlining how Germany intends to advance arms control initiatives in international forums. This is one piece of the puzzle toward the strategy’s objective of fostering security and peace.
Liana FixFellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington D.C.
Germany’s new National Security Strategy is probably the least useful indicator of whether Germany is getting serious about security and defense. It presents a laundry list with little prioritization or future-oriented strategy. The two major shortcomings of the security strategy are the lack of budgetary and institutional underpinning.
First, the national security strategy committed Germany to 2 percent of defense spending over a “multi-year period.” However, this pledge is not supported by budgetary planning. According to reports, the regular defense budget will receive only minimal raises in the next period. Once the €100 billion ($110 billion) special fund—which helps Berlin to reach 2 percent in the next year—runs out, the regular budget needs to be raised by around €20 billion ($22 billion) at once—an impossible task.
Second, the strategy is missing a crucial institutional underpinning: the national security council. There is perhaps no other capital in Europe that needs a security council more urgently than Berlin, to coordinate powerful ministries and disparate multiparty government coalitions. Without a national security council, strategic policy planning and policymaking in Berlin will continue to lag behind.
However, Germany’s Zeitenwende is more than just smoke and mirrors. Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, the German mantra of “military restraint” and “civilian power” has entirely disappeared from discourse. Boris Pistorius, Germany’s new defense minister, is taking his job seriously. And Russia—a rogue statue for the foreseeable future—will not allow Germany to return to its post–Cold War slumber.
Kate Hansen BundtSecretary General of the Norwegian Atlantic Committee
The German Zeitenwende has already had consequences for Euro-Atlantic security. Germany has lifted its restrictions on providing military assistance to a country at war. It is sanctioning Russia and has been decoupling from Russian natural gas.
Berlin has also increased its military contribution to NATO’s Eastern flank and has slowly started to reform the Bundeswehr. But a sustainable Zeitenwende needs a more profound reform plan. The new National Security Strategy (NSS) is meant to provide a basis for this.
The strategy is highlighting Russia as the imminent threat to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area. This indicates that there is no going back to the old “Russia first” approach for Berlin. The strategy rightly focuses on Germany’s national security and the need to make it more robust (Wehrhaft)—entailing both the ability and willingness to defend oneself—and resilient.
A reformed Bundeswehr is clearly positioned as the core security-policy instrument for countering threats and providing deterrence and defense. The strategy also endorses Germany’s support for NATO’s nuclear deterrence—often questioned by politicians from the Social Democrats and the Greens. However, this was already clear in December 2022, when the Bundestag approved the purchase of thirty-two F-35 fighter aircrafts to replace the old Tornados.
The issue of whether Germany will reach NATO’s 2 percent goal in 2024, is unfortunately left rather unclear. It is also disappointing that Germany will remain without a national security council that could have helped the implementation of the Zeitenwende and the development of a more robust strategic culture for the future.
Ben HodgesFormer commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and senior advisor at Human Rights First
Germany is finally coming to grips with its responsibilities as a leading nation in the world, and as America’s most important continental ally—not always our favorite but our most important.
The threats to European security and stability and to the values that we all claim as vital to our way of life can no longer be ignored or brushed away. German leadership recognizes this and is finally, slowly, taking the steps to address this.
The long overdue publication of the German National Security Strategy is part of that process. It’s the product of a coalition government so it will naturally be a compromise. But it is that process of having to identify and prioritize strategic interests and evaluating means required to protect those interests that is so important. And this first iteration will inform the next iteration.
Germany was in danger of losing its moral authority so hard-earned over the last seven decades if it continued to stand on the sidelines, ignoring the obvious threats. The publication of this national security strategy shows that Germans want to preserve that moral authority.
Now, about that Zeitenwende...
Karl-Heinz KampFormer special envoy in the German Ministry of Defence
If one takes the new National Security Strategy (NSS) as a yardstick for Germany getting serious on defense, then the answer is a resounding “yes.” The NSS emphasizes the importance of hard security, declares the Bundeswehr to be the core element of deterrence and defense, defines Russia as an imminent threat, and explicitly commits to NATO’s two-percent target. The NSS also stresses the importance of nuclear deterrence and underlines Germany’s contribution to NATO’s nuclear posture.
All this was written by a government which, with the Social Democrats and the Greens, contains two parties that in the past have been primarily pro-Russian, pacifist, and anti-nuclear.
Politically, too, much has changed. Sixteen months ago, Berlin made the embarrassing offer to supply Kyiv with 5,000 helmets to defend itself against Russia. Today, Germany is Ukraine’s second largest military and civilian supporter after the United States. Sanctions against Russia are supported by most of the German population, although the consequences are felt through inflation and increased energy prices.
The litmus test for Germany’s willingness to implement all the promises made, however, will be the upcoming defense budget. So far, the 2 percent is only on paper, and even the €100 billion ($110 billion) that Chancellor Olaf Scholz has made available as part of the Zeitenwende is not enough to remedy all the military weaknesses of the Bundeswehr. Only when defense spending increases will NATO allies have proof that Germany has woken up to reality.
Julian Lindley-FrenchChairman of The Alphen Group
“Don’t mention the war,” John Cleese once said. Hitherto, albeit in various shades of field gray, that has pretty much summed up German defense policy since World War Two.
The Germans have always been serious about security, but defense is another matter. German defense policy has relied on four truisms: keep the Americans in just in case; keep the French forever talking about EU defense; hide German military power in NATO; and appease Russia.
Donald Trump’s capricious presidency first undermined those truisms whilst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine blew them out of the water. Germany’s new National Security Strategy is an attempt to plug the gaping hole in German security and defense policy and is to be commended. Reading between the lines it is also clear that the defense ministry gained a clear victory over the foreign ministry. Such is the nature of coalition politics. The Zeitenwende has been institutionalized and embedded within broader German security policy.
However, when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. The proof will be the means Berlin devotes to keeping the Americans in, the French talking to avoid German expense, the Poles (sort of) happy, and the Russians out.
Christian MöllingDeputy director of German Council on Foreign Relations’ (DGAP) Research Institute
The National Security Strategy (NSS) is a long government declaration of what needs to be done. Policy is what gets funded. Yet the NSS rules out that it becomes policy.
The document says it has no impact on budgets unless the ministries make way for it in their own existing funds. All this comes at a time when Germany is sliding into a recession—so ministries will have to cut spending anyway.
As for Germany’s security recession, it is much older and more profound than this short fiscal downturn. Structural underfunding of constitutional duties has turned into state failure, not only in defense but in many security areas. Germany fails to protect its people, societies, and political institutions, be it against threats of the twenty-first century, like floods, cyber-attacks, and viruses, or nineteenth or twentieth century-style imperial powers.
What Germany puts at risk is essential for Europe. Thus, Germany needs a security decade. To manage the main security risks, over ten years Germany may have to spend around 4 percent of its GDP per year.
Security is often a premium in which you harness public or private investment, like in chip production, railways, streets, public services. In uncertain times like these, it actually creates sustainability of the investment.
Also, from a long-term program, German industry could profit twice: as suppliers and as recipients of a secure (IT) infrastructure and with a competitive advantage. Moreover, taxpayers’ money would create sustained security, instead of a rush to spend much money overnight and rather inefficiently. This would also increase the sustainability of the level of security achieved.
Nora MüllerExecutive Director of International Affairs at the Körber-Stiftung
To be fair, not all criticism of Germany’s supposed inability or unwillingness to implement the Zeitenwende is justified.
A mammoth project of this dimension cannot be implemented in just a few months. Nor is it possible to turn a country's security policy identity upside down virtually overnight. Yet, the fact that in year two of the Zeitenwende, the question is still being asked whether Germany is really serious about its new security and defense policy role speaks for itself—and should surprise no one.
The eagerly awaited first National Security Strategy falls short of expectations. Especially with regard to the implementation of its strategic goals, it remains vague. Despite the new dynamism under Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, for example in procurement, the Bundeswehr’s equipment deficiencies are far from being remedied. Berlin will only achieve NATO’s two-percent goal thanks to a calculation trick (“on a multi-year average”). As things stand at present, the budget of the Federal Ministry of Defence is not to increase further in the coming years. Unfortunately, all these points do not inspire confidence. Rather, they prove the critics right.
Jan TechauDirector, Germany at Eurasia Group, Berlin
As always, the answer lies in the budget. Germany could well reach NATO’s spending goal of 2 percent of GDP for defense in 2024. But the number is hollow. It includes contractual commitments from the short-term special procurement fund (Sondervermögen) that is an important improvement but will run dry by 2026.
The regular defense budget, the line item that really needs to go up to two percent in the long term, will increase by a meager €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion) to €51.8 billion ($56.7 billion) in 2024, significantly below 2 percent. Given inflation and the general climb in personnel and operational costs in the armed forces, this increase is de facto a decrease.
Nothing illustrates the German psychodrama on defense better than this numerology. The Ukraine shock has led to a profound rethink among both elites and the wider public. By and large, there is a better understanding now of strategic realities, and a greater willingness to fund and support the troops. And yet the country cannot muster the courage for a more profound change of priorities. Both friend and foe will take note. Germany is on the right path, but the hardest part is yet to come.
Gesine WeberFellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Paris
Yes, but getting serious looks different in Germany than in other countries.
In the context of German strategic culture, the national security strategy represents a massive learning process. Germany has a long way to go to catch up with other European states with long-standing strategic traditions, like France or the UK. Before Russia’s war against Ukraine, discussions on security and defense were almost a taboo topic—not least because of the deeply rooted pacifism in German civil society. The publication of the strategy, despite the challenging process within the coalition and the government’s significant effort in communicating with the citizens about the different facets of security, reflect how the topic is being taken seriously at the highest level.
The explicit reference to interests and the analysis of the international system are comparable to national security strategies of other countries, and show that Germany is slowly learning to reflect on its place in the world in geopolitical terms. However, a forward-looking element is missing: in the end, decisions on prioritization and funding will have to be made to link ends to means and implement what is on paper. These decisions and trade-offs will show how serious Germany is about security and defense.
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