| dc.description.abstract | Norway and Denmark are two countries with a great many similarities. The two states share a common Scandinavian language and culture, very similar democratic political systems, generous welfare states, and even membership in the same military alliance. However, this dissertation will argue that, in the field of defence policy, the two countries have pursued markedly different paths in the post-Cold War era. Investigating the period 1990–2008, the study argues that Norway showed reluctance to get involved in the growing number of international military operations after the Cold War, initially doing so only with low-risk support units. Denmark, however, welcomed the new international paradigm of employing the armed forces actively as a part of foreign policy. Embracing expeditionary employment of its armed forces from an early point, Danish units were frequently among the few western forces to take part in actual combat operations abroad.
The thesis identifies four key reasons for this post-Cold War defence policy divergence between Norway and Denmark. Firstly, Norway continued to share a border with the unstable great power Russia, and also needed to maintain its sovereignty and authority in its huge and partially disputed maritime economic zones. Denmark, on the other hand, faced neither a lingering territorial threat, nor the same need to exercise authority and sovereignty in its maritime economic areas. Secondly, decision-makers in Norway remained generally hesitant about making major changes to defence policy before the turn of the century, while, in Denmark, key decision-makers actively sought to create new political consensus for employing the Danish Armed Forces as active instruments of Danish foreign policy. Thirdly, while the Danish Armed Forces quickly became a willing and capable foreign policy tool, the Norwegian Armed Forces were neither as capable of performing the new expeditionary missions, nor as willing to do so as their Danish counterparts. Fourthly, and finally, Denmark’s post-Cold War experience of successfully utilizing force abroad drove a reconfiguration of its relationships with the armed forces, and made it reappraise the utility and morality of utilizing force. Norway, on the other hand, did not undergo the same change and therefore retained a more traditional Nordic position with regard to sovereignty and the use of force. | eng |