New German security strategy to boost domestic defence and co-ordination national interests abroad

Chancellor Olaf Scholz accepted an unusual present for his 65th birthday on Wednesday: instead of socks or cake the Berlin leader took delivery of a long-delayed comprehensive security strategy – post-war Germany’s first.

The 76-page, richly-illustrated brochure formalises the ad hoc “Zeitenwende” policy shift – adopted after Russia invaded Ukraine last year – to boost German domestic defence, supply Kyiv with heavy arms and pivot away from Russian energy supplies.

It also widens the definition of security policy and promises better co-ordination of how Germany pursues its national interests abroad.

After months of ministerial wrangling between Berlin’s three coalition partners, however, it remains to be seen whether the document can live up to the hype. In particular: will it provide enough orientation – and wriggle room – for Berlin to resolve a 30-year-old tension between what others expect of the modern Germany and what Germans expect of themselves?

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The document, more descriptive than detailed, says Germany’s uppermost priority is to “protect our country, its free democratic order and our values” based on international law and the UN charter. Early on it defines Russia as “for now the most significant threat to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area”.

Presenting the document to the press, Scholz said Germany had a new integrated approach to security which included cybersecurity and countering disinformation, as well as supply chain security for food, medication, energy and critical components.

“All means and instruments have to interlock to protect our country against threats from outside,” he said. “Without security there is no freedom, no stability and also no prosperity.”

Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the paper her officials drafted reflected “a new phase in security policy that has long since kicked in”. She said “our partners in Europe and the world can depend on our country as we depended on others for decades”.

Priorities here, the Green foreign minister said, would be security issues related to climate change, biodiversity and food supplies.

“Security in the 21st century is more than diplomacy and military,” she said, promising ministries and agencies a “one-click data platform” of all German activities abroad, “so that we don’t just send money into the world but also consider geopolitical issues”.

Presenting the paper at a press conference in Berlin, Scholz and four cabinet members faced repeated questions about what, in concrete terms, the new document would change.

Baerbock insisted the paper “formalises guidelines from which departments derive competences” – from revising export credit arrangements for German firms to encouraging alternative production partners beyond China in strategic areas such a lithium-production for batteries and semiconductors.

In addition, the paper signals a less restrictive arms exports policy which “takes into account alliance and security interests, the geostrategic situation and the needs of enhanced European arms co-operation”.

Even ahead of a separate German policy paper dedicated to relations with China, Wednesday’s document reflects tensions in Berlin between a more critical stance in the foreign ministry and a pragmatic chancellery.

The strategy paper describes China both as “acting time and again counter to our interests and values” and, in the next sentence, as “a partner without whom many global challenges and crises cannot be resolved”.

Quizzed about this broad China stance, Scholz said Berlin’s “firm transatlantic anchor” with Washington did not preclude Germany from fostering relationships across Asia to “help create a multilateral world that works”.

Scholz also insisted that Berlin will meet its Nato spending obligations – 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) – for the foreseeable future.

“Two per cent is our planning horizon,” he said, “that is something on which the armed forces can build.”

Financing remains the biggest question in Berlin’s security strategy given the hawkish approach of Christian Lindner, Germany’s liberal federal finance minister.

After approving a €100 billion off-balance sheet defence fund last year, Lindner has staked his political reputation on avoiding tax increases and returning Berlin to balanced budgets next year.

Asked how Germany could spend more on security with neither additional income nor fresh borrowing, Lindner said “some desirable projects will have to be placed on the waiting list because security projects we are undertaking here have priority”.

Those are fighting words after a recent series of bitter spending rows in Berlin’s three-way coalition. Without careful management, Scholz knows that his new security strategy could yet endanger the security of his parliamentary majority.