Comment on the security strategy: It is the implementation that counts

In the strategy paper on national security, the traffic light coalition wrote down what it is already planning. Whether there is more to it than general words, she has to show in the implementation.

It’s always a problem with strategies: flowery words describe the big picture – and in the end nobody really knows what that actually means in practice. This is how many of the 76 pages of the National Security Strategy read. The traffic light coalition is not developing any fundamentally new guidelines for foreign and security policy. She writes down what she is planning anyway or what is already a reality.

Much remains vague so that everyone from the traffic light can gather behind it. The chancellor and four ministers use the presentation of the strategy to send a signal of unity. The skirmish of competence between the self-confident diplomats around Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and the even more self-confident Chancellery with Olaf Scholz is smiled at and glossed over.

The security concept think bigger

Nevertheless, it is right to finally present this strategy and to think of the term “security” as something bigger than just diplomacy and the Bundeswehr. Security also means that electricity and clean water come out of the pipes every day, that pharmacies do not run out of important medicines and that industry has reliable access to raw materials.

All of this is described in the National Security Strategy. But whether it is more than general words, the federal government must now show in the implementation.

That starts with the money. Finance Minister Christian Lindner makes it clear: Security is his top priority. But is he really thinking about the new “integrated” concept of security or just about the special fund for the Bundeswehr?

responsibilities reorder

If the federal government is serious, it would have to invest massively in civil protection and disaster control. There is a lot of catching up to do here. Forest fires and extreme weather are becoming more frequent rather than rarer.

Or the cyber defense repeatedly mentioned in the strategy. When hackers attack and shut down hospitals or authorities, the question arises: Who is responsible now? The police, the Federal Office for Information Security or the Bundeswehr?

Rearranging these responsibilities and giving the federal government more powers as the central office will be a key challenge. Because the federal states do not like to give up competences. And the fact that they weren’t really allowed to have a say in the security strategy doesn’t make compromises any easier. Such questions will decide whether the National Security Strategy is more than a colorful brochure.