In Norway, not many norm-entrepreneurs came forward to delib-eratively change what was considered natural or appropriate, as Ellemann-Jensen and Hækkerup did in Denmark.423 Less assertive use of Norwegian military forces after the Cold War slowed recognition of
417 Michael H. Clemmesen, “De danske væbnede styrker i fremtiden – en skitse fra side-linien”, Militært Tidsskrift 132, no. 2 (June 2003): 267.
418 Rasmussen, “‘What’s the Use of It?’”: 82.
419 Ibid.
420 Sten Rynning, “Denmark as a Strategic Actor? Danish Security Policy after September 11”, in Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook 2003, ed. Per Carlsen and Hans Mouritzen (Co-penhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies, 2003).
421 Poul Villaume, “Aktivisme – eller tilpasning?”, Politiken, 24 September 2006.
422 Anders Wivel, “Between Paradise and Power: Denmark’s Transatlantic Dilemma”, Security Dialogue 36, no. 3 (2005): 417–421.
423 Jakobsen, “Stealing the Show”, 42.
the new paradigm of using the Armed Forces as a foreign policy tool, and when it did occur, it did not penetrate the collective Norwegian mindset as deeply. Norway consequently found it much harder to adapt to the new international PSO environment, where use of force beyond self-defence was becoming increasingly common. This new paradigm was seen to run counter to the traditional Norwegian emphasis on peaceful conflict resolution and mediation.424
According to Norwegian political scientist Halvard Leira, Norwegian foreign policy culture had been characterised since the late 19th century by a strong emphasis on conceptions of the peaceful na-ture of Norway and its people. This powerful peace discourse in the foreign policy realm meant that defence issues were seen as something apart from foreign policy, as the defence discourse lacked an interna-tional dimension. It necessitated the portrayal of Norwegian military engagements abroad as inherently humanitarian, in extension of this peace tradition.425 For a Norwegian politician to challenge the estab-lished tradition by advocating a more proactive use of Norwegian mil-itary forces would involve taking considerable political risk.426 There was therefore a gap between the new paradigm, where military force was associated with a wider foreign policy conception, and domestic Norwegian practice. In 1990 it was considered unnatural to contribute combat forces to the Gulf War;427 there was “nothing in our historical tradition” which suggested Norway should participate.428 As we have seen, this refusal to send combat troops to peacemaking operations did not disappear until 1997 and the creation of SFOR. Denmark, while also exhibiting much of the same discourse, had a stronger tradition for thinking strategically about military force in terms of foreign pol-icy, and its peace tradition was less missionary than the Norwegian.429 Torunn Laugen Haaland suggests that in the early 1990s, while wanting to demonstrate Norway’s solidarity with its allies, the
424 Peter Viggo Jakobsen, “The Nordic Peacekeeping Model: Rise, Fall, Resurgence?”, International Peacekeeping 13, no. 3 (September 2006): 389–390.
425 Halvard Leira, “Folket og freden: Utviklingstrekk i norsk fredsdiskurs 1890–2005”, Internasjonal Politikk 63, no. 2–3 (2005): 135–160; –––, “‘Hele vort Folk er naturlige og fødte Fredsvenner’. Norsk fredstenkning fram til 1906”, Historisk tidsskrift, no. 2 (2004): 153–180.
426 Leira, “‘Hele vort Folk”, 180.
427 Johan Jørgen Holst, “Aktuelle forsvars- og sikkerhetspolitiske utfordringer: foredrag i Oslo Militære Samfund den 7. jan 1991”, Norsk Militært Tidsskrift 161, no. 2 (1991): 3.
428 State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Helga Hernes. Quoted in Heidi Borud, “– Ikke norske styrker til Gulfen”, Aftenposten, 6 January 1991, morning edi-tion.
429 Halvard Leira, “‘Same but different’ – Tenkning om fred og krig i Skandinavia rundt 1900”, Militært Tidsskrift 136, no. 2 (July 2007): 167–180.
Norwegian political leadership did not want to be associated too close-ly with military matters. By way of compromise, they emphasised the non-military aspects of Armed Forces’ operations abroad, portraying Norwegian soldiers as military humanitarians.430 It continued during Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan operations, even as the Norwegian mili-tary contributed increasingly robust combat forces. Norwegian poli-ticians still continued to accent the non-military and humanitarian aspects of the military activities abroad, downplaying and even using clever rhetorical ploys to mask the military aspect of overseas opera-tions.431 Kjell Magne Bondevik, the Norwegian Prime Minister during the 1999 Kosovo War, was accused of trivialising Norway’s military involvement by describing it as “limited military operations”.432 It is also revealing to read the account of the Norwegian Foreign Minister 2000–01, Thorbjørn Jagland. While recognising that NATO’s Article 5 had been invoked, he still praised the toppling of the Taliban as a humanitarian intervention,433 and made no mention of Norwegian military participation.434 This fits Marc Houben’s finding: Norwegian participation in international military operations was mostly justified by international obligations and humanitarian concerns, and far less by material national interests.435 Noting this, Karsten Friis argues,
[T]hat Norwegians have to kill and die on another continent to secure national strategic security appears to have been difficult to state publicly for the government. The humanitarian version is safer and less controversial.436
The resulting gap between rhetoric and reality was very wide, leading to something akin to cognitive dissonance.437
430 Haaland, “Small Forces with a Global Outreach”, 83–85.
431 Torunn Laugen Haaland, “Participation in Peace Support Operations for Small Coun-tries: The Case of Norway”, International Peacekeeping 14, no. 4 (August 2007): 505–
506.
432 He later regretted his choice of words; Kjell Magne Bondevik, Et liv i spenning (Oslo:
H. Aschehoug & Co, 2006), 431–434.
433 Thorbjørn Jagland, Vår sårbare verden (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2002), 20.
434 Ibid., 8–21.
435 Marc Houben, International Crisis Management: The approach of European states (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 115.
436 Karsten Friis, “The Power of the Draft: A Century of Changing Legitimacy of Nor-way’s Armed Forces”, in The Changing Face of European Conscription, ed. Pertti Joen-niemi (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006), 112.
437 Janne Haaland Matlary, “Kriger i kamuflasje? Profesjonene og politikken”, in Kri-gerkultur i en fredsnasjon, ed. Håkan Edström, Nils Terje Lunde, and Janne Haaland Matlary (Oslo: Abstrakt forlag, 2009).