BERLIN: Earlier this week, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats published a paper calling for a security strategy for Germany. This short document touched on all the challenges facing the country, including terrorism, energy security, nuclear proliferation and climate change. It also called for the establishment of a national security council that would oversee the domestic and counterintelligence security services, the Foreign and Development Aid ministries and other agencies that represent Germany's interests.

With this document, a German political party for the first time initiated a debate over national interests and why Berlin, which oversees Europe's largest economy, needs a security strategy. But Merkel's coalition partners, the Social Democrats, and the opposition parties lambasted the document. They said that the chancellery would become like the White House and use the national security council to undermine Parliament and the Foreign Ministry.

None of the critics talked about the real weaknesses of the document. The paper did not deal with the issue of hard power. It did not spell out under what circumstances the German Army, or for that matter, the European Union, should intervene in order to stop civilians being killed - like in Darfur, Sudan.

What this shows is that neither Germany nor most of the 26 other EU member states are ready for a serious discussion about why the bloc needs a security doctrine: It would mean dealing with the issue of power.