Altid beredt! Den danske ekspeditionsparathed i komparativt lys

Sammendrag

Komparation med sammenlignelige lande negligeres som oftest i studier af dansk militær ’aktivisme’. Dette bidrag vil bøde på det i en analyse af Danmarks interventionsparathed med Norge og Polen som baggrundstæppe. Den konkrete situation, der studeres, er krisen vedr. begrænsede luftangreb mod Syrien i september 2013 i kølvandet på regimets formodede anvendelse af kemiske våben i Ghouta. I modsætning til de fleste allierede lod Danmark sig ikke afskrække af den kontroversielle Irak-intervention 10 år tidligere. Danmarks særlige parathed handlede mindre om lokale omstændigheder end om Danmark selv, forholdet til Washington og landets angivelige historiske ’gæld’ til USA. Det er imidlertid svært at måle en sådan gæld, ligesom det er en udfordring for superatlantismen, at Danmarks interesser er mere geografisk begrænsede end stormagten USAs.

Abstract in English
Always ready! Danish intervention enthusiasm in comparative perspective
Comparison with similar countries is much neglected in studies of Danish military ‘activism’. This contribution seeks to remedy that in an analysis of Danish forces’ ’happiness both to travel and to fight’, in which Norway and Poland serve as the comparative backcloth. The specific situation under scrutiny is the crisis over limited air raids over Syria in September 2013 in the wake of the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons in Ghouta. As distinct from most allies, Denmark was not discouraged by the controversial Iraq intervention 10 years earlier. The special Danish readiness was less about perceptions of the local conditions than about Denmark itself, its relationship to Washington and an alleged historical ‘debt’ to the US. However, not only is such debt difficult to measure; a challenge to superatlanticism is also that Danish interests are geographically more delimited than those of the US great power.