Germany to unveil first-ever National Security Strategy

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is set to unveil Germany’s first National Security Strategy on Wednesday which aims to provide an overview of the country’s foreign policy and ensure a cohesive cross-ministry approach to security.
Germany has had policy documents in the past addressing security but Scholz’s three-way coalition agreed it wanted a more comprehensive strategy in its pact in November 2021.
That idea gained a new urgency following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which exposed the poor state of the German military, Germany’s over-reliance on Russia for energy and insufficient protection of critical infrastructure such as gas pipelines.
Analysts said, Germany had been too complacent in light of new threats including increasingly assertive authoritarian states such as Russia and China in the decades of peace and prosperity following the end of the Cold War.
The Ukraine war, however, heralded a “Zeitenwende” or “turn of era”, as Scholz said in a landmark speech days after the invasion, requiring Germany to prioritise security more and spend more on defence.