A few highlights from the history of Danish foreign policy and diplomacy
"All nations bigger than Denmark are crocks of doo-doo." Kurt Vonnegut
"And so is Denmark, just smaller ..." dann
Like the inhabitants of all other nations with a glorious past, Danes tend to think of themselves as part of a tradition, which is probably the reason why, over the years, illustrations from 'our' viking past have been printed on Danish banknotes alongside portraits of prominent dead Danes such as Ole Rømer, Hans Christian Andersen, H.C. Ørsted, Karen Blixen and Niels Bohr: http://www.nationalbanken.dk/DNUK/NotesAndCoins.nsf/side/Denmarks_banknote_series!OpenDocument
And it is true! (but nothing to be proud of, in my opinion.) A thousand years ago the vikings were able to conquer most of Scandinavia, major parts of England and plunder cities as far away as Paris and Constantinoble. And today Denmark has troops stationed in distant countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, but that is a story that we'll return to in due course.
If you look at maps of Denmark through the ages, the actual nation and its sphere of influence in the Baltic region, it soon becomes apparent that it has shrunk considerably: Maps of Denmark/Scandinavia and the Baltic region:
www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/scandinavia/haxdenmark.html
In 1658 it had almost shrunk to its present size when Sweden conquered Scania/Skåne on the other side of the Øresund, the sound separating Denmark from Sweden. It still had control of parts of Schleswig and Holstein (now Northwestern Germany) but lost (a little more than) these possessions in 1864 when Prussia and Austria liberated them as part of Prussia's unification project that created Germany.
Because Germany lost a war in 1919, a part of the territory lost in 1864 was returned to Denmark in a plebiscite forced upon Germany by the powers that won WWI. (Denmark had been neutral and profiteered from the war because it was able to do business with all the countries involved in the war.)
It is interesting to look at the reason why Denmark wasn't swallowed completely by Sweden in the war that made Scania Swedish: The more powerful nations in Europe wouldn't let it happen! Until that war Denmark had controlled the seaward approach to the Baltic Sea which was a nuisance to nations doing business in that area: customs, a major source of income for the Crown! They did not want to let another country get this kind of monopoly! This is probably the only reason why Denmark still exists as an autonomous nation, surrounded by much more powerful countries!
It also helps explains Denmark's position in the cold war:
"In an international crisis the Soviet Union - especially if the duration of the crisis is long - will be very interested in access to and from the Atlantic Ocean through the Baltic Sea." Well, actually the Soviet Union would be interested in this all the time, but in an international crisis certain powers might want to put a stop to it! "Here - in the Baltic - the USSR has more than half of its capacity in shipyards and supplies. If a crisis threatens to prolong itself, sooner or later the Soviet Union must be able to supply and repair its vessels in the Atlantic Ocean from its bases and shipyards on the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Therefore the Soviet Union needs to be free to sail through the Danish straits and sounds." (major Flemming Schroll Nielsen: AMF - NATO's krisestyrke, p.24-25, my translation)
"As we saw in the case of Murmansk in connection with Northern Norway, it is not very likely that the Soviet, Polish and East German forces in the Baltic area are deployed in order to be a threat to Denmark." !!! "They, too, should be seen in a larger - global - context. But the outcome will be the same! If a tense situation should arise anywhere in the world, and the USSR would want to secure its ability to sail unhindered in and out of the the Baltic," ... or if NATO would want to put a stop to this! "then the Soviet Union may feel tempted to seize control of the opening of the Baltic into the Atlantic." (p. 25-26)
So the logic actually was: By controlling Denmark, NATO would be able to put a stop to not only the Russian, but also the East German and Polish fleets as well, which would make the Warsaw Pact countries want to attack Denmark, a very small, impotent nation. Therefore it was of vital importance to NATO to make it obvious that they wouldn't then be at war with just Denmark, but with all of the Allied Mobile Force:
"If you attack now, you will be at war with troops from Seeland - i.e. Denmark. You will also be confronted with troops from eight other NATO countries." (Belgium, Canada, England, Holland, Italy, Luxemburg, the USA and West Germany) (...) "and that means that an attack on Denmark is an attack on all of the NATO alliance." (p. 36)
As a conseqence of its position Danish dipomacy and foreign policy has been based on trying not to piss off the major players in European affairs, since the existence of the country is based on the favours of the powerful nations in the region: Russia, Germany, Great Britain. 'We' have always relied on the kindness of strangers! That is not as easy to do as it may sound, since these nations were often at war with each other. During the Napoleonic wars Nelson almost completely destroyed the Danish fleet. It took the Germans about half an hour to occupy the country, April 9, 1940.
Like most other small, but fairly wealthy nations (Holland or the other Scandinavian countries) Denmark's speciality used to be on the field of virtuous ideals of international relations. If Denmark couldn't compete in international affairs with the major players, it could at least live up to the ideals of the UN and pay the required percentage of its GNP to aid countries in the so-called Third World. And since Denmark, due to its size, wasn't able to make a lot of enemies, the Danes cultivated an image of themselves as having the ideal relationship between political leaders and the populace - sometimes to the extent that the demonstration of this relationship pissed off leaders of other countries.
(In October 1972 when Denmark joined the EEC (now the EU), I was on a class trip to Paris. Sitting at a sidewalk café we watched as a policeman manually switched the traffic lights on and off to enable the big limos accompanied by motorcycles swish by, carrying the representative of the nine (?) member states away from some meeting. At one point the policeman looked confused, waited a while, and then he switched the traffic lights back to automatic and left. Ten minutes later another limo drove by as part of the ordinary traffic and without motorcycles - and (of course) with the (now so familiar!) Danish flag. Premier Anker Jørgensen enjoyed doing stunts like that, which naturally upset the security arrangements in general.
As part of the Danish national mythology an anecdote of Czar Peter the Great visiting Denmark is told: He and the Danish king were standing on top of Rundetårn, a round tower in central Copenhagen. Czar Peter bragged to the Danish king that he was so powerful that if he ordered one of his servants to jump off the tower, he would do so. The Danish king then told (off) Czar Peter that his own power rested on the loyalty of his subjects who knew that he would never order them to do a thing like that.
We do indeed live in the country of fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen ...)
In recent years, however, Danish foreign ministers have enjoyed the power and significance it gives them to be part of a (super)powerful alliance. Before the Soviet Bloc collapsed completely they were able to go to Moscow and speak more or less on behalf of NATO, and in recent years they have had troops stationed in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Until now, however, the Moslem and Arab world did not really notice the existence of Denmark whose role in these wars was mainly symbolic as one of the countries mentioned by Bush as part of the Coalition of the Willing!
At the very beginning of the current Iraqi war, Bush gave Anders Fogh Rasmussen the commission to go back to Europe and head the endeavours of making the Unwilling European nations join the war against Saddam Hussein and his alleged WMDs. When asked about his attitude to this by a Danish reporter, a French premier was heard saying: "What??! I never heard of such a thing!" By a reporter on Danish TV this was interpreted as an embarrassment, since this French statesman obviously hadn't done his homework properly.
In reality, however, the embarrassment, of course, was that the Danish premier was snubbed by the Frenchman who found the idea so utterly ridiculous that he pretended that he hadn't heard of this US affront to the old powers of Europe: Bush's suggestion that a Danish premier LEAD anything concerning them!
As recent developments (the "Cartoon Controversy", aptly named!) show, Danish diplomacy may have overrated its support from its powerful allies when it refused to meet with ambassadors from Moslem countries for talks about the cartoons published by the daily Jyllands Posten ....
There's a BIG difference between the USA and Denmark in this respect. Pointing at the high ideals of democracy and free speech isn't worth much when you are the leader of an impotent nation like Denmark. It may serve to convince the people that are subject to your power, but it doesn't help you much abroad. (And Jyllands Posten's campaign was probably never meant to be seen by an audience outside of Denmark!) If you represent a superpower like the USA, however, it is so much easier to pretend that these ideals are all you care about:
http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/improving-the-world.html
Patriotism in a superpower never LOOKS as childish as patriotism in 'nations no bigger than Denmark' ...
http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/patriotism.html
Edited to correct year: 1945 --> 1940!
"All nations bigger than Denmark are crocks of doo-doo." Kurt Vonnegut
"And so is Denmark, just smaller ..." dann
Like the inhabitants of all other nations with a glorious past, Danes tend to think of themselves as part of a tradition, which is probably the reason why, over the years, illustrations from 'our' viking past have been printed on Danish banknotes alongside portraits of prominent dead Danes such as Ole Rømer, Hans Christian Andersen, H.C. Ørsted, Karen Blixen and Niels Bohr: http://www.nationalbanken.dk/DNUK/NotesAndCoins.nsf/side/Denmarks_banknote_series!OpenDocument
And it is true! (but nothing to be proud of, in my opinion.) A thousand years ago the vikings were able to conquer most of Scandinavia, major parts of England and plunder cities as far away as Paris and Constantinoble. And today Denmark has troops stationed in distant countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, but that is a story that we'll return to in due course.
If you look at maps of Denmark through the ages, the actual nation and its sphere of influence in the Baltic region, it soon becomes apparent that it has shrunk considerably: Maps of Denmark/Scandinavia and the Baltic region:
www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/scandinavia/haxdenmark.html
In 1658 it had almost shrunk to its present size when Sweden conquered Scania/Skåne on the other side of the Øresund, the sound separating Denmark from Sweden. It still had control of parts of Schleswig and Holstein (now Northwestern Germany) but lost (a little more than) these possessions in 1864 when Prussia and Austria liberated them as part of Prussia's unification project that created Germany.
Because Germany lost a war in 1919, a part of the territory lost in 1864 was returned to Denmark in a plebiscite forced upon Germany by the powers that won WWI. (Denmark had been neutral and profiteered from the war because it was able to do business with all the countries involved in the war.)
It is interesting to look at the reason why Denmark wasn't swallowed completely by Sweden in the war that made Scania Swedish: The more powerful nations in Europe wouldn't let it happen! Until that war Denmark had controlled the seaward approach to the Baltic Sea which was a nuisance to nations doing business in that area: customs, a major source of income for the Crown! They did not want to let another country get this kind of monopoly! This is probably the only reason why Denmark still exists as an autonomous nation, surrounded by much more powerful countries!
It also helps explains Denmark's position in the cold war:
"In an international crisis the Soviet Union - especially if the duration of the crisis is long - will be very interested in access to and from the Atlantic Ocean through the Baltic Sea." Well, actually the Soviet Union would be interested in this all the time, but in an international crisis certain powers might want to put a stop to it! "Here - in the Baltic - the USSR has more than half of its capacity in shipyards and supplies. If a crisis threatens to prolong itself, sooner or later the Soviet Union must be able to supply and repair its vessels in the Atlantic Ocean from its bases and shipyards on the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Therefore the Soviet Union needs to be free to sail through the Danish straits and sounds." (major Flemming Schroll Nielsen: AMF - NATO's krisestyrke, p.24-25, my translation)
"As we saw in the case of Murmansk in connection with Northern Norway, it is not very likely that the Soviet, Polish and East German forces in the Baltic area are deployed in order to be a threat to Denmark." !!! "They, too, should be seen in a larger - global - context. But the outcome will be the same! If a tense situation should arise anywhere in the world, and the USSR would want to secure its ability to sail unhindered in and out of the the Baltic," ... or if NATO would want to put a stop to this! "then the Soviet Union may feel tempted to seize control of the opening of the Baltic into the Atlantic." (p. 25-26)
So the logic actually was: By controlling Denmark, NATO would be able to put a stop to not only the Russian, but also the East German and Polish fleets as well, which would make the Warsaw Pact countries want to attack Denmark, a very small, impotent nation. Therefore it was of vital importance to NATO to make it obvious that they wouldn't then be at war with just Denmark, but with all of the Allied Mobile Force:
"If you attack now, you will be at war with troops from Seeland - i.e. Denmark. You will also be confronted with troops from eight other NATO countries." (Belgium, Canada, England, Holland, Italy, Luxemburg, the USA and West Germany) (...) "and that means that an attack on Denmark is an attack on all of the NATO alliance." (p. 36)
As a conseqence of its position Danish dipomacy and foreign policy has been based on trying not to piss off the major players in European affairs, since the existence of the country is based on the favours of the powerful nations in the region: Russia, Germany, Great Britain. 'We' have always relied on the kindness of strangers! That is not as easy to do as it may sound, since these nations were often at war with each other. During the Napoleonic wars Nelson almost completely destroyed the Danish fleet. It took the Germans about half an hour to occupy the country, April 9, 1940.
Like most other small, but fairly wealthy nations (Holland or the other Scandinavian countries) Denmark's speciality used to be on the field of virtuous ideals of international relations. If Denmark couldn't compete in international affairs with the major players, it could at least live up to the ideals of the UN and pay the required percentage of its GNP to aid countries in the so-called Third World. And since Denmark, due to its size, wasn't able to make a lot of enemies, the Danes cultivated an image of themselves as having the ideal relationship between political leaders and the populace - sometimes to the extent that the demonstration of this relationship pissed off leaders of other countries.
(In October 1972 when Denmark joined the EEC (now the EU), I was on a class trip to Paris. Sitting at a sidewalk café we watched as a policeman manually switched the traffic lights on and off to enable the big limos accompanied by motorcycles swish by, carrying the representative of the nine (?) member states away from some meeting. At one point the policeman looked confused, waited a while, and then he switched the traffic lights back to automatic and left. Ten minutes later another limo drove by as part of the ordinary traffic and without motorcycles - and (of course) with the (now so familiar!) Danish flag. Premier Anker Jørgensen enjoyed doing stunts like that, which naturally upset the security arrangements in general.
As part of the Danish national mythology an anecdote of Czar Peter the Great visiting Denmark is told: He and the Danish king were standing on top of Rundetårn, a round tower in central Copenhagen. Czar Peter bragged to the Danish king that he was so powerful that if he ordered one of his servants to jump off the tower, he would do so. The Danish king then told (off) Czar Peter that his own power rested on the loyalty of his subjects who knew that he would never order them to do a thing like that.
We do indeed live in the country of fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen ...)
In recent years, however, Danish foreign ministers have enjoyed the power and significance it gives them to be part of a (super)powerful alliance. Before the Soviet Bloc collapsed completely they were able to go to Moscow and speak more or less on behalf of NATO, and in recent years they have had troops stationed in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Until now, however, the Moslem and Arab world did not really notice the existence of Denmark whose role in these wars was mainly symbolic as one of the countries mentioned by Bush as part of the Coalition of the Willing!
At the very beginning of the current Iraqi war, Bush gave Anders Fogh Rasmussen the commission to go back to Europe and head the endeavours of making the Unwilling European nations join the war against Saddam Hussein and his alleged WMDs. When asked about his attitude to this by a Danish reporter, a French premier was heard saying: "What??! I never heard of such a thing!" By a reporter on Danish TV this was interpreted as an embarrassment, since this French statesman obviously hadn't done his homework properly.
In reality, however, the embarrassment, of course, was that the Danish premier was snubbed by the Frenchman who found the idea so utterly ridiculous that he pretended that he hadn't heard of this US affront to the old powers of Europe: Bush's suggestion that a Danish premier LEAD anything concerning them!
As recent developments (the "Cartoon Controversy", aptly named!) show, Danish diplomacy may have overrated its support from its powerful allies when it refused to meet with ambassadors from Moslem countries for talks about the cartoons published by the daily Jyllands Posten ....
There's a BIG difference between the USA and Denmark in this respect. Pointing at the high ideals of democracy and free speech isn't worth much when you are the leader of an impotent nation like Denmark. It may serve to convince the people that are subject to your power, but it doesn't help you much abroad. (And Jyllands Posten's campaign was probably never meant to be seen by an audience outside of Denmark!) If you represent a superpower like the USA, however, it is so much easier to pretend that these ideals are all you care about:
http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/improving-the-world.html
Patriotism in a superpower never LOOKS as childish as patriotism in 'nations no bigger than Denmark' ...
http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/patriotism.html
Edited to correct year: 1945 --> 1940!
Last edited:
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