The Role of the UN Peacemaking Operations in the Foreign Policy of Denmark in the 1990s: from an Exemplary Peacemaker to an Ardent Atlanticist

Under the Cold War Denmark successfully employed the UN peacemaking operations to increase its own international status and strengthen relations with the key Western allies. The Nordic model of peacemaking was later considered as an example to be followed by other European states in the 1990s. As the role of the UN gradually declined during the 1990s and the UN peacemaking operations led to major failures, most notably the Srebrenica massacre and the Rwandan genocide, NATO, as well as the EU, started expanding their own activities in the sphere of peacemaking and peace enforcement. As a consequence, Denmark stopped considering the UN peacemaking as the main framework for international activism and started getting increasingly engaged in coalition operations and NATO operations as a means to win the favor of the key ally — the USA. Another factor that significantly contributed to Denmark’s growing atlanticism was the so-called "defense clause" which prevented Denmark from participating in the military dimension of the emerging CFSP within the EU and later CSDP. The Danish international activism acquired therefore a tangible military element which on the one hand enabled Denmark to punch above its weight, but at the same time became contradictory to the very ideas and goals which made international activism attractive for the Danish public in the first place. The initial value- and identity-driven UN peacemaking eventually became reduced to a means of accomplishing limited goals of status-seeking and ensuring the country’s place as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. It is thus becoming increasingly difficult for Denmark to reconcile the adherence to humanitarian diplomacy and Nordic "Peace Brand" with aggressive military activism.