Although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced a sea change in his country’s security policy, it remains to be seen what the new strategy will look like, and whether it will command broad public support. Long proposed but never implemented, a German National Security Council could help to settle these questions.
BERLIN – After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the newly reunited Germany became a champion and leading exponent of the emerging liberal international order. Germany saw itself, and presented itself to the world, as an economically open democracy with a “welcoming culture” (Willkommenskultur) and a commitment to human rights. Yet while its economic might put it near the top of many international rankings of soft power, decades of underinvestment in the Bundeswehr (armed forces) meant that it punched far below its weight militarily.
BERLIN – After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the newly reunited Germany became a champion and leading exponent of the emerging liberal international order. Germany saw itself, and presented itself to the world, as an economically open democracy with a “welcoming culture” (Willkommenskultur) and a commitment to human rights. Yet while its economic might put it near the top of many international rankings of soft power, decades of underinvestment in the Bundeswehr (armed forces) meant that it punched far below its weight militarily.