The preceding section charted the development in Danish and Norwegian defence policy from approximately 1990 until 2008. While the two nation’s armed forces forces shared similar missions and force postures around about 1990, a decade later these missions and postures had become very different indeed. Anthony Forester, in his 2006 study of armed forces and society in Europe, concludes that, in the 21st century, the armed forces of Denmark and Norway parted ways, and now belonged in his view to different categories. While Norway retained a Territorial Defence model, the type of armed forces both countries had possessed during the Cold War, Denmark had transformed its military into a Late Modern force.1
Table 2: Different Typologies of Armed Forces
Territorial Defence Model Late Modern Model
Have generally been willing to engage in peacekeeping tasks only to a very limited degree, with still less enthusiasm for high intensity peacemaking and war-fighting operations, and relatively few resources have therefore been allocated to the development of a rapidly deployable forces.
[Has a] dual mission providing what might be termed a "residual Territorial Defence function", but in parallel a commitment to provide a significant contribution as a proportion of overall sizes to international peacekeeping.
Source: Anthony Forster, Armed Forces and Society in Europe. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 54, 62.
Forester also concluded that Denmark had moved towards a war-fighting focused conceptualisation of peacekeeping which included high-intensity warfare, and was more willing to make use of force without a Security Council mandate, when circumstances required action (the so-called "post-Westphalia" position).2
It is important to reiterate once more that we are talking about a difference of degree.
While the reorientation towards international operations has been higher in the Danish Armed Forces than in the Norwegian, the latter have nevertheless undergone one of the greatest
1 Forster, Armed Forces and Society in Europe, 53-65.
2 Ibid., 217, 205.
public-sector reforms in modern Norwegian history.3Also, while it is true that Danes have shown a higher willingness to take part in high-intensity combat than the Norwegians, the picture changes if we compare the Danish Armed Forces with their US or UK counterparts.4 Finally, while the Danish military has been more positive towards an all-volunteer force than the Norwegian Armed Forces, Norway and Denmark nevertheless remain two of the few NATO countries to retain conscription at all.5 Thus one should not overemphasise the differences between Norway and Denmark compared to other countries.6
Nevertheless, there are substantial differences, which need to be accounted for. Why did Denmark give much more attention and resources to international military operations than Norway, and why were the Danes much more willing to engage in combat operations in risky areas of the world? Section II will examine one by one the four main factors identified as driving this early and persistent reform and employment of the Danish Armed Forces towards expeditionary missions, and will also explain why the Norwegian military only did so at a more measured pace. When viewed together, these factors provide the answer to the second part of the research question, why Norway and Denmark’s defence policies diverged after the Cold War.
Initially, Chapter 4 will address Norway and Denmark’s different geopolitical environments after the Cold War. Denmark’s newfound strategic security was a key underlying reason why reorientation towards expeditionary defence was possible in Denmark, but less so in Norway. This factor is dealt with first because it represents a necessary condition for Denmark’s path towards expeditionary defence, and a constraint on Norway’s ability to do the same.
Thereafter, Chapter 5 will look at individual leadership as the instigator of change in Denmark. That the reorientation started so early in Denmark, and was carried out with such determination, cannot be understood without examining the individual decision makers who pushed through this change in Denmark. These leaders broke with tradition and succeeded in
3 Thomas Brachel, Ingunn Botheim, and Gunnar Bakkeland, "Rapport Nr. 2006:7 Omstillingen av Forsvaret 2002-2005 - dokumentering av resultater og måloppnåelse," (Oslo: Statskonsult, 2006), 5.
4 Joseph Soeters and Miepke Bos-Bakx, "Cross-Cultural Issues in Peacekeeping Operations," in The Psychology of the Peacekeeper : Lessons from the Field, ed. Thomas W. Britt and Amy B. Adler (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 292.
5 Of the 19 "old" member of NATO, only Germany, Greece, Turkey, Norway and Denmark still retained conscription by 2008, and of the 10 "new" members only Estonia still had conscription. Forster, Armed Forces and Society in Europe, 163-164.
6 One comparative study of military cultures found Norway and Denmark to score similarly on most indicators.
Joseph L. Soeters, Cristina-Rodica Poponete, and Joseph T. Page Jr., "Culture's Consequences in the Military,"
in Military Culture ed. Amy B. Adler, et al., Military life : the psychology of serving in peace and combat (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 18.
building stable political support for the new policy of military activism which proved enduring. The absence of similarly driven reformers in Norway until 2000–2001 was an important reason for the country’s much slower pace of change. Norwegian leaders were also less able to build broad political support for making tough choices and setting priorities. This continued to hamper the ability to make effective military contributions abroad.
Chapter 6 will look at military culture, a factor which was an important facilitator for change in Denmark but which served as a hindrance in Norway. The reformist leaders in Denmark were aided by a Danish Armed Forces culture which welcomed and supported internationalisation. The Danish military also had a personnel structure making it easier to adapt the organisation to the new paradigm of projecting military force abroad. In Norway the Armed Forces fought internationalisation, and had a personnel structure making them less suitable for more demanding and dangerous missions abroad.
Finally, Chapter 7 will study the different strategic cultures in Norway and Denmark.
After the Cold War Danish elites and society grew to believe that the use of force was occasionally necessary and effective. This consensus gradually emerged from the successful post-Cold War use of the Danish military abroad, and in turn resulted in more frequent employment of the Danish Armed Forces in warfighting-situations abroad. Norwegian elites were however reluctant to even talk about warfighting. Norwegians did not see military means as the answer, nor did they feel equally threatened by distant phenomena such as terrorism. They also continued to view the Armed Forces’ traditional defence and nation building tasks at home as being important.
CHAPTER 4