To lead or not to lead?

The Munich Security Conference (MSC) is the ideal place to discuss new ideas in a safe space. There is no other occasion where there are that many experts gathered together to talk informally about security policy.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen used this special forum to present her new concept of "leading from the center" at the beginning of the conference. But her presentation let many people confused.

"What is this supposed to mean?" was the question most often heard in the halls of the conference hotel Bayerischer Hof. "It left me with a big question mark," Claudia Roth from the Green Party and vice president of the Bundestag said. "I didn't get it."

No more than commonplace wisdom?

The explanations that von der Leyen supplied left many of the listerners unsatisfied. The defense minister had talked about Germany's willingness to solve international conflicts together with other countries - this, von der Leyen claimed, was "leading from the center."

But this has been the credo of German foreign policy for a long time, with the country always reliably integrating into the European context or cooperating with other partners. Ever since the end of the Second World War, everyone agrees that solo missions are a no-go. No nation has the means to solve conflicts by itself, von der Leyen said.

To the experts present in Munich, this sounded like a platitude. "In Europe, Germany is always at the center and acting from the center, you don't have to go to great lengths to emphasize this," Sylke Tempel, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Internationale Politik" (Foreign Policy) said.

Trying to find a balance between responsibility and fear

After von der Leyen, together with Germany's foreign minister and president, had called for Germany to take on more responsibility last year, the plenum in Munich was expecting her to take stock and further develop the thought.

Von der Leyen did draw a balance - a rater positive one, with Germany's efforts to find a solution in the Ukraine crisis, for example. Many conference participants acknowledged these achievements.

But hardly anyone saw the slogan "leading from the center" as an advancement. It was rather considered an oxymoron or an attempted balancing act.

James Davis, a US political scientist, said the term reflected the fears that the change of course triggered one year ago. Polls have shown that many Germans are still very skeptical of the idea that the Bundeswehr, Germany's army, could be sent on even more missions abroad.

"It's an attempt to integrate the responsibility that Germany feels and the fears that go along with that," Davis said about von der Leyen's speech. He believed that it was directed at Germany as well as its foreign partners. But as a US-American, he felt the need to say: "It's hard to lead when you're not at the steering-wheel." Davis pointed to Obama's foreign policy as an example.

A pick-and-choose responsibility

Von der Leyen's speech reveals the dilemma that the economically strong power Germany is in: it wants to lead, but not too much! Participating in the airstrikes against the "Islamic State" militia is not considered part of this leadership by Germany, but delivering weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq is.

Von der Leyen calls this delivery "the dissolution of a taboo." Claudia Roth from the Greens on the other hand is incensed about it: "Germany's military restraint is an accomplishment and if we're now breaking this taboo, we're going in the wrong direction."

And what became of the "greater responsibility?" The Bundeswehr prefers training other troops to fighting, especially since some of their aircrafts are ready for the scrap yard and military funding isn't exactly extensive. German government is also only investing small sums in civil conflict solving and reacted to the Ebola crisis at snail's pace.

A problem with leadership

"In total, this just shows our aimlessness," one of von der Leyen's party colleagues from the conservative CDU, who did not want to be named, said. The phrase "leading" could just as well have been dropped from von der Leyen's speech, many conference participants agreed. "Taking on responsibility" would have been a better fit according to the experts.

They said that the phrase of "leading from the center" only showed that Germany seems to have a problem with this issue.