The furore over a proposed new National Security Council in Berlin is symptomatic of Germany’s ambivalence, says Klaus Brummer. He warns that there can be little change until the German political elite explains to the electorate the relevance of sending troops to far-away hotspots

Germany’s security policy has come a long way since the end of the Cold War; starting with “chequebook diplomacy” during the Gulf War in the early 1990s, Berlin is now one of the major contributors to multinational conflict management missions, within both NATO and the EU’s European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). Yet Germany is still not pulling its weight in either organisation. It remains reluctant to cover the entire conflict-intensity spectrum, and its unwillingness to send troops to the south of Afghanistan as part of NATO’s ISAF mission is a case in point. Germany is also far from reaching the goal of 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be spent on defence that was targeted in NATO.

The reasons for Germany’s ambivalence, of being both active and inert at the same time, can be directly attributed to domestic politics. If existing impediments could be overcome, the political will needed to make a greater contribution to multinational missions, and the financial resources that would close its military capability gap, would very probably be forthcoming.

Germany lacks strategic vision. This in turn reflects the many unanswered questions over Germany’s role in the world; when, where and with what means and partners should the country become active in global affairs? German society as a whole seems very uncertain about how to view the fundamental changes that have taken place in the world, not least in the global power structure. There were significant omissions in the latest white paper on German security policy and the future of the armed forces published in autumn 2006. The part that dealt with the strategic context of Germany security policy did not even mention the rise of China and India or the re-emergence of Russia. This was all the more surprising because most if not all of the policy challenges it dealt with – energy security, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and regional conflicts – cannot be tackled without taking these powers into account.

The core problem is the lack of substantial public support for a stronger German engagement in global security affairs. It is issues like job security, health or social services that, perhaps unsurprisingly, rank top of Germans’ priority list, with the global engagement of their country trailing far behind. This does not mean, however, that Germans are categorically against a stronger international role of their country, it’s just that the majority perceives domestic issues to be more pressing. What is more, when their country does become active in global security affairs, German public opinion is much more supportive if the engagement is non-military, such as disaster relief.

Germany’s political elite has long eschewed engaging the voting public in a serious discussion about the security environment, and how Germany should assert itself. The nature of the challenges, the risks and threats involved and the consequences of neglecting them have yet to be explained. The connection between German participation in NATO and ESDP missions in distant parts of the world and the socio-economic well-being of the country has quite simply not been made. Indeed, the dictum of former German Defence Minister Peter Struck that Germany’s security has to be defended at the Hindu Kush is for most Germans far from self-explanatory. And the politicians shy away from opening this debate for at least two reasons. One is that it is a very complex issue that lacks the simplicity of Cold War days. Another is that few Germans parliamentarians’ interest in security issues is likely to be rewarded at the next general election.

German security structures have not yet been adapted to suit the changed security environment. Yet no one could say the guiding principles are missing. Few political leaders’ speeches on security policy forget to mention that comprehensive security, or networked security (vernetzte Sicherheit), is the way forward. The problem is that there is no comprehensive plan to implement this comprehensive approach. Two of the few institutional or conceptual islands of networked security are the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) fielded by Germany in Afghanistan and the country’s “Action Plan on Civilian Crisis Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding”.

So what could Germany be doing to overcome these serious deficiencies? The idea of a National Security Council (NSC) together with a National Security Advisor (NSA), and the regular publication of a National Security Strategy (NSS), would make a useful contribution. The foundations for those innovations are already in place, and the National Security Council could emerge from an upgrading of the Federal Security Council (Bundessicherheitsrat). The National Security Advisor could quite easily be appointed by promoting the head of the security policy division of the Chancellery, and the National Security Strategy could result from devising a tighter version of the security policy white paper. With these building blocks in existence, it would be difficult for anyone to argue that these changes pose a threat to Germany’s parliamentary system or to its overall political culture.

Membership of the Federal Security Council already consists of nine members; the Chancellor, the Head of the Chancellery and the ministers for foreign affairs, defence, finances, interior, justice, economics and development cooperation. These days, however, the Federal Security Council is more or less limited to licensing arms exports. A major reorientation of the council should go hand in hand with a name change to National Security Council. The new council must become the centre of gravity for an inter-ministerial re-think of Germany’s security strategy. Whether it should also become the body that coordinates crisis-management abroad and decision-making on domestic disaster responses, as proposed by the CDU-CSU parliamentary group, is a different question.

Among the key tasks of a new National Security Council would be the development and implementation of a National Security Strategy. This would establish Germany’s policy objectives and would guide the restructuring of German security architecture. These should also be regularly revisioned, arguably every four-year after national election.

To fulfil these tasks, the National Security Council needs adequate staff, and here again the foundations are already in place. The Foreign, Security and Development Policy Division of the Federal Chancellery already prepares meetings for the Federal Security Council, and once expanded should develop scenarios and options papers and draft the security strategy for the new Council. It should also be beefed-up with officials seconded from other ministries, and there should be input from think-tanks and academia, and perhaps too from the business world.

The position of National Security Advisor to run the new National Security Council already exists, if in name only. The foreign and security policy advisor to the Chancellor also heads the division of the Chancellery that could serve as the National Security Council’s working structure. But for all that, the council, its Advisor and a new strategy would be no panacea for what ails German politics. They would strengthen Germany’s ability to develop a clearer vision of its role in the world, but they cannot make up for the long overdue discussion between the country’s political elite and the public about security policy.

In any case, the chances of these suggestions being put into practice seem modest. The controversy over a recent proposal by the CDU-CSU parliamentary group to create such a national security council showed how politically sensitive the whole topic still is. Until Germany stops shying away from addressing its own domestic political problems, it will continue not to pull its weight in either NATO or the ESDP.