By: Karsten Riise*
(PM Mette Frederiksen wearing pretend camouflage dress).
Denmark is an interesting research-object for understanding the politics of contemporary wars – and get behind the constructed facades of gender.
Denmark is a war-happy country, hyper-actively seeking constant political advantage from war. Liberal Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen LOVED Iraq+Afghanistan. These wars propelled Fogh Rasmussen up to become General (secretary) of NATO. Fogh Rasmussen’s jump to NATO was not just a “collateral side-bonus” for Fogh Rasmussen: It was his career-plan already as he sent his country’s soldiers off to Afghanistan and Iraq. When the war was started and Fogh Rasmussen was still Prime Minister, a Danish Colonel at a reception quipped dryly to me: This is how you become Secretary General to NATO. I was mildly chocked, if this was the cynical reality. As it turned out, it was. At that time, it was still not public knowledge what the Colonel had referred to, that Fogh Rasmussen went for the NATO top-post. But it later became known, that the first thing Fogh Rasmussen had done, as he entered his Prime Minister’s office, was to secretly order his closest PM officials to go immediately hunting for his next job, which he demanded should be an international top-position. Becoming leader of NATO was from the beginning one of Fog Rasmussen’s top career-priorities, and he would never have got such a personal welcome with Bush II in the White House and Camp David https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/06/images/20060609-2_a6g2295-515h.html and eventually succeeded in securing Bush II’s support for the NATO top-post, if Fogh Rasmussen had not sent soldiers and produced corpses for the USA in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As demonstrated by professor Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen in his book The Good War? (“Den Gode Krig? Danmark i Afghanistan 2006-2010”), what gives value for the politicians of a small-country like Denmark is not whether a war like Afghanistan or Iraq is actually won or not. What prof. Vedby demonstrates is, that first of all it matters to the small-country’s politicians to “be part of it”. Band-wagoning. To be a camp follower. The small-country’s politicians choose to deliver blood to prove their allegiance to the stronger power (here, the USA) who is leading that war. Thus, a small-nation like Denmark can “win” a war, even if a war-of-choice is actually lost – provided that the politicians of the small-country through their tribute in loss of soldiers have increased their stockpile of goodwill with the leaders of the big power. Therefore, as Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen demonstrates, Denmark’s small-country politicians (both right-wing “Liberals” under Fogh Rasmussen and the left-wings with then-Parliament speaker Social Democrat Mogens Lykketoft), deliberately ordered their military to a “Goldilock” war-participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like Goldilock’s choice of of the medium-tempered bowl, Denmark’s politicians deliberately opt for a war-participation supporting the big-power, where combat is hot and creates dead bodies as tribute to the big-power, but not too hot, and hence not too many dead bodies. What Denmark’s politicians consider “hot but not too hot war” is, however, less subject to politician-humanitarian sensitivities in the welfare-state of Denmark. Compared to its country size, Denmark in Iraq and Afghanistan in total “produced” quite a lot of dead bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USA: From 2002 up till today, Denmark’s military has in Iraq+Afghanistan booked a total loss of 52 dead and 233 wounded, out of a country of less than 6 million people http://forpers.dk/hr/Pages/Faldneogsaarede.aspx
In the beginning, Denmark’s Social Democrat Parliamentary Speaker Mogens Lykketoft had an extremely short hesitation, but very soon Social Democrat Mogens Lykketoft was a key figure for support of sending Denmark’s soldiers to the hot-but-not-too-hot bowl of the USA’s “wars of choice”. The “Goldilock” preference made Denmark opt for soldiering in the Helmand province of Afghanistan: Denmark’s politicians, incl. Fogh Rasmussen as well as Lykketoft, clearly expected soldiers to die in Helmand province, but only in limited numbers. When the porridge of the Afghanistan-war at a time got a bit too hot, Denmark actually chose to let others consume the porridge-bowl of the bloodier burden. This happened (not without bitterness from UK side), when 87 lesser equipped UK paratroopers in 2006 were asked to take-over from a larger unit of 120 better equipped Danish soldiers, when the “porridge” became too hot for Denmark’s “Goldilock” taste in Musa Qala (prof. Vedby, p.43). The smaller contingent from the UK then held on in Musa Qala for 2 months, double the time Denmark’s more than one third larger unit of better-equipped soldiers had been supposed to stay there.
But in the opinion of the next war-faring US President after Bush II, President Barack Obama, Denmark was “punching above its weight”. The USA continued to be happy with Denmark’s tribute. Mogens Lykketoft’s support for Denmark’s war-participation at that time was without doubt a good stockpile of goodwill for Lykketoft to get the supported he needed from a US President, when Lykketoft in 2013 ran for the office to become President of the UN General Assembly, a post Lykketoft assumed in 2015-2016 https://www.un.org/pga/73/about/past-presidents/ .
These lessons by Fogh Rasmussen and Lykketoft in the immense personal political advantages which can be reaped from war have not only not been lost on Denmark’s women politicians. Denmark’s women politicians have now eagerly grabbed the political opportunities in sending men to fight and die in wars of choice. Women – also leftist women – perhaps even more eagerly than men jump the war wagon. Because women don’t have to do the dirty work themselves, they can send male soldiers to kill and be killed.
As Professor Martin van Creveld has demonstrated (see for instance his book Pussycats), women soldiers are few and women cannot be forced or drafted to put their life on front line. Even those few women who volunteer to take on a uniform are nearly always widely protected from being sent to the dangerous front lines. As Martin van Creveld, who has also studied the actual roles of the much renowned women soldiers in the Israeli military, concludes, the dry reality of “woman soldiers” nearly everywhere in the world is that “Where there are women, there are no bullets – Where there are bullets, there are no women”.
Social Democrat female PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt LOVED to send (nearly all male) soldiers to wars (never mind how hopeless the wars were) in a bid to follow Fogh Rasmussen’s international top-career. Helle Thorning-Schmidt eventually just fell flat at her last election at home, and she became exiled as CEO of one of the many western state-sponsored do-good “NGO’s”, the “Save” the Children in the UK.
Today, both Denmark’s Social Democrat female PM Mette Frederiksen and her female Social Democrat war-minister Tine Bramsen, even more than their male political predecessors, LOVE war. https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/politik/danskpolitik/mette-f.-opruster-sender-hundredvis-af-danskere-paa-mission/7779547 The list of new military engagements which Denmark’s PM Mette Frederiksen wants is no longer just a pair of countries, but a LONG list of all sorts of expensive and man-intensive missions. Syria. Africa. Afghanistan (still). The Baltic. The Arctic. a Danish Frigate to support US carrier fleets (as if the US Navy would be too weak without Denmark…). And of course PM Mette Frederiksen eagerly advocates US President Trump’s general wish for higher military spending without clearly defined needs. https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/live-regeringen-praesenterer-militaere-bidrag
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Recently, France suggested to intervene militarily in it’s former colony Syria (in the north), now the US is pulling back. Some would call that a brain-dead proposition. But guess WHO wanted to jump at such a splendid (even if disastrous) new war-opportunity? Denmark’s Social Democratic female PM Mette Frederiksen, of course. So it is not just about personal and national profiling in relations to the USA, but we see here a general instrumentalization of men for war-fighting for political profiling in just about any arising chance for war, also together with France, if the USA no longer wants.
The war-love of Denmark’s female Leftist politicians is now so hot, that they want to continue near 20 years of hopeless war-fighting in Afghanistan, even if their male soldiers and military experts warn against it, and even if the male right-wing President of the US should pull out of Afghanistan.https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/hvis-usa-ikke-er-i-afghanistan-giver-det-ikke-mening-vi-er-der-jo-mener-minister
(read in English with Chrome and Google Translate)
These politics of Denmark as an example of a small war-happy US camp-follower are not only important for understanding the international politics of war – including the important value in war-legitimation and PR for a power like the USA to have a no.1 “do-good happy welfare-state” like Denmark fight along. These aspects are also important to understand the left-right and gender politics of war and violence.
War is violence. By definition.
We see here on display, that women are not more peaceful and anti-violent than men.
It should be researched, if women are even more violent than men, as long as women themselves can duck the consequences of violence by instrumentalizing men. In the USA, there was probably not a war, which female president-wannabe Hillary Clinton did not vote for in Congress. The Abu Ghraib torture of men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse was all commanded by a woman, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. And as described here, in Denmark we see examples how left-wing females from Denmark’s former PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, till today Denmark’s current PM Mette Frederiksen and her female war-minister Tine Bramsen are probably even more war-happy than their male political predecessors, and even more war-happy than some US right-wings, like President Trump, who actually seeks to pull out of war in Syria and Afghanistan.
Women are vital to promote, legitimize and even instigate war and violence.
Women can (still) better get away with promoting war. Women, also when seriously wrongdoing, manage to get viewed mildly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Karpinski. Women were always in history important for cheering, when the male troops marched off. And women denied love to men, who resisted to fight whichever cause their woman (mother or wife) cajoled them to fight for.
With #MeToo we see today more than perhaps ever, how women in media are constructing a fakenews gender-image of themselves as more humane, “caring”, more victimized, and above all more truthful than men. Women claiming their gender as the “better humans” make women excellent political constructors for selling violence for their own purposes. Because as the fake-constructed woman propaganda runs today: Women must be believed…. (or must they always?).
Karsten Riise is Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from University of Copenhagen. Former senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden with a responsibility of US Dollars 1 billion. At time of appointment, the youngest and the first non-German in that top-position within Mercedes-Benz’ worldwide sales organization.