Chapter 13

Increasing Military Influence

in Danish Civil-Military Relations

Henning Sørensen

Introduction

This chapter pursues developments of Danish civil-military relations to identify changes in the degree of military influence. Two case studies are put forward. The first case deals with long-term change processes in the field of civil-military relations. In this case study, four major areas are investigated: the personnel composition of the Danish defence, its expenditures per capita, its organisational structure, and military participation in defence commissions. Changes in all four areas are pursued over the last-half century revealing increased military influence in Danish civil-military relations. A striking indicator of this development is the case of top military disobedience in 2001, which constitutes the second case study entitled ‘Military disobedience of the Danish defence commander’. The consequences of the major military influence for three actors: ‘politicians’, ‘media’, and the ‘armed forces’ are discussed and it is argued that neither of them gains from the increased military influence, not even the professional soldiers. The reported extreme of military behaviour contrasts many examples of military respectful democratic decision-making. Reasons for the military disobedience may be explained by the distinction ‘to have’ or ‘to exercise’ democratic control, where the former is the proper type of democratic control of the armed forces and not the latter as wrongfully perceived by the former Danish Joint Chief of Staff (JCS).

Long-Term Trends of Civil-Military Relations

Force Structure

Both the size and composition of the Danish armed forces has substantially changed, even if the exact force structure from 1945 to 1949 was somewhat uncertain (Petersen, 1980, pp. 2, 41). Several reasons are accountable for this: secrecy, the defence acts of that time where framework laws[1] were drafted with many military institutions pursuing their own individual personnel policy, different statistical categories were used, and official and de facto personnel statistics often differed. Consequently, no exact official figures from 1945 and 1950 exist. Nevertheless, the probable size and profile of the Danish armed forces of that period is soundly based on the calculation of personnel data from laws, announcements etc.[2]

Danish armed forces grew from 1945 to 1965 and hereafter decreased for all four personnel groups: officers, NCOs/Regulars, conscripts, and civilians. However, two groups have remained relatively stable: the officer corps and civilian employees throughout the whole period. The officers have amounted to between 10 and 14 per cent of all armed forces personnel and civilians between 21 per cent in 1950 and 27 per cent today. In absolute figures, however, the officer corps quadrupled from 1,500 in 1945 to 7,100 in 1970 and then gradually shrank to 4,700 in 1990 and today totals 3,800. The present proportion of civilians of around 8,000 people is almost the same as in 1950. The NCOs/Regulars-group has grown from 12 per cent in 1950 to 40 per cent in 2002. The conscript group has undergone the greatest reduction of all four categories both in absolute and in relative numbers: from 10,000 in 1945 via 31,500 in 1965 to its all-time lowest of 5,700 persons of today or from 65 per cent in 1945 to its present 20 per cent.

The number of Danish soldiers per 1 million citizens has dropped from 10,500 in 1965 to 3,900 in 2002. But from a civil-military relations point of view it is decisive to note that since 1950 the two full-time soldier groups of officers and NCOs/Regulars have grown from 21 per cent in 1950 to 53 per cent in 2002 while the input of conscripts and civilian employees have been reduced from 76 per cent in 1945 to 47 per cent. This change is even more significant for the two smaller services, the navy and the air force, as the army has about 80 per cent of all conscripts and 50 percent of all civilians.

Another aspect of the personnel composition is the recruitment of women for the Danish armed forces. Officially ‘the aim is to achieve a balanced proportion of women’ (Forsvarsministeriet, 2002a) which may mean a successive expansion of the number of female soldiers, as has been the case for most other NATO countries. In 1962, legislation established the legal basis for employment of women in the armed forces. It was renewed in 1969 but not implemented until 1971. In 1972, women counted for 1.4 per cent of all personnel in the Danish armed forces, in 1981, 1.9 per cent. For the last 15 years around 5 per cent of all volunteering soldiers in Denmark have been women[3] which is disappointing as it has been politically decided to increase their number by accepting women as fighter pilots, for combat units, in submarines since 1994, as enlisted soldiers for the Danish Reaction Brigade since 1995, and as conscripts on a contract equal to the demands of Danish male conscripts since 1998.[4]

All armed forces’ personnel decreased from 28,370 in 1991 to 20,526 in 2001 or by 31 per cent and of military personnel from 19,528 in 1991 to 15,409 in 2001 or by 21 per cent. The number of women employed in the armed forces remained stable by around 4,300, whereas the number of female soldiers in the military forces has dropped from 1,067 in 1991 to 862 in 2001 or by 19 per cent. So even if women have 21 per cent of all jobs of the Danish armed forces only 6 per cent of them serve in traditional military functions.

In short, relatively more (male) professional soldiers have been recruited at the cost of conscripts and civilians. As a consequence, contacts between the civil and military world are reduced and contrary to the political will and the official policy of the Danish armed forces – the number of female soldiers shrank by 20 per cent. The political leadership has not yet reacted to this violation of the political guidelines mostly for the reason of ignorance, the psychological reason of high military prestige, or the political reason of traditional consensus on military affairs. But little by little, Danish political parties will ask questions and put forward demands for changes within the force structure. We have seen that recently (April 2003) when the Danish Labour party changed its attitude and now is in favour of abandoning military conscription – contrary to the declared position of the military which wishes to continue with conscription.

Defence Expenditures

Throughout the last half-century Danish defence expenditures have fluctuated less than in most Western countries. The growth rate in absolute figures and in current prices in Danish Crowns doubled in five years between 1945/46 and 1950/51 from 0.2 billion. to 0.4 billion tripled over the next three decades to respectively 1,0 billion in 1960/61, to 2.9 billion in 1970/71 and 8.8 billion in 1980, then almost doubled to 16.4 billion in 1990, but increased ‘only’ by 25 per cent in the last decade to 20.1[5] billion in 2002.[6]

Danish defence expenditures as compared with GDP increased due to the US Marshall Plan military assistance of the 1950s[7] (Udenrigsministeriet, 1998, p. 48) and the Cold War period tensions among other things – and then dropped over the last quarter of the century from 2.8 per cent of GDP in 1980 to 1.5 per cent of today. However, defence expenditures per capita reveals that Denmark has increased its relative military spending compared to other NATO countries so that only the US, Norway, France and Greece are ahead of Denmark moving Denmark from eighth position in 1980 to fifth in 2002. Today, Danish military receives relatively more money than is the case in most European armed forces in NATO and the reduction of military budgets after the end of the Cold War was more moderate in Denmark than in most other NATO countries. One reason for that is the high military esteem with which Denmark’s armed forces are held by other NATO countries. Another the fact that Danish armed forces during the Cold War period did not receive as much money as most other NATO countries. In this sense, Denmark cashed the peace dividend of the end of the Cold War before it actually ended.

The present positive political attitude behind the military spending is further supported by other economic favours for the Danish armed forces: in 2001, the new government decided to reduce public spending in all other ministries except the DOD. Over the last decade, the Danish army in particular has been granted equipment for use in international missions on a large scale. Notwithstanding, several times in the last decade Danish armed forces’ agencies were criticised for over-spending and poor economic management without any political consequences or sanctions.[8]

Danish armed forces are courteously treated and never financially sanctioned in spite of their obvious deficits such as insufficient accounting, reported and criticised in several cases by the Danish Audition Bureau; the ‘forgotten’ salaries for 1,800 soldiers and civilians working in the armed forces in 2003 etc. This has probably to do with the popular prestige of Danish soldiers serving in international military missions. But it seems as if the tide has turned and politicians are more on the alert and willing to sanction military behaviour previously accepted, probably as a reaction to the Hvidt case study discussed below.

Organisational Structure

A major organisational change of the Danish armed forces took place at the beginning of the 1950s. Until that time, the Danish armed forces consisted of the army, headed by the War Ministry, and the navy, headed by the Marine Ministry, while each of the two services had its own air force. In 1950, the ‘Lov om Forsvarets ordning’ (‘the Act on the Organisation of the Armed Forces’) combined the two military ministries into a single DOD, and established an independent air force. In addition, it was decided that the DOD should have a civil servant as chief executive, which was a recognition of the civil supremacy of the armed forces. But at the same time it was decided to establish an integrated defence command, named Forsvarskommandoen, FKO, and that officers should head each of the three services. In 1952, a new position of Chief of Military Operations in War was established to fit the co-operative structure of NATO and new international military agencies were established such as Commander Baltic Approaches (COMBALTAP), Standing Naval Forces Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT), and NATO Air Defence Ground Environment (NADGE). In 1966, the DOD was further reduced and more functions delegated to FKO (Udenrigsministeriet, 1968, p. 144). In the 1990s, more military organisations have been established such as the Danish Reaction Brigade for use in UN-, OSCE-, NATO- or national missions finalised by January 1997, a special UN standby force maintained in co-operation with other Nordic countries, and SHIRBRIG, the multinational UN Stand-by Forces High Readiness Brigade located in Denmark and operational by 1999.

This development signals two major organisational changes: increased delegation in Denmark from the political to the military area and more new career positions in international agencies for Danish top officers to qualify for. Accordingly, the senior officers are given more political influence in more political career positions abroad than before and at home ‘the minister of defence … and [his] department are weak in contrast to a resourceful defence command (FKO)’ (Petersen, 1978, p. 149).                              

On top of that, two more characteristics should be mentioned that are almost without precedence in any other NATO country: the DOD and the defence command are geographically separated and the position as Chief of Defence is in fact decided by senior officers in the three services and only formally appointed by the Danish minister of defence or by Danish politicians. The tradition is that the position of chief of defence circulates between the three services so that an admiral will replace the present army officer and an air force officer, in turn, will succeed him. In other words, the defence minister has accepted not to choose the better candidate in his opinion, but let the senior officers themselves select one of their peers on a regular basis: Danish armed forces have obtained increased functional and promotional independence.

Defence Commissions

Defence Commissions are established to determine the security position of Denmark and accordingly to suggest changes of the Danish armed forces. Over the last half century Denmark has experienced four Defence Commissions of 1946–50, 1969, 1988 and 1997 (Bjerg,1991; Heurlin, 1991, p. 134; Sørensen, 1997). The first and the last had international causes, the end of the Second World War and of the Cold War, while the second and third ones were initiated due to a shift in government, both times when Liberal-Conservative parties took over from Social-Democrats.

In all four Commissions, Danish Officers became members, while civil and more independent scholars did not participate until the second Commission of 1969. This could be seen as a decreased military and increased civilian influence in Defence Commissions but the civilian scholars were security experts. In other words, they could define the security position of Denmark, but were more or less unable to suggest proper changes of the Danish armed forces and therefore less able to debate internal military issues with the military members of the Commission. Another reason for the proposition of increased and not decreased military influence is that the defence policy is framed by Denmark’s security situation as defined by the Danish Foreign Ministry and therefore outside the realm of the military establishment. The first, second, and third Commission had representatives from the Foreign Office to do so, but in the fourth Commission of 1997 Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE (the Danish Military Intelligence Service) did it. Therefore, one agency of the Danish military system defined the foundation for the rest of the military establishment without any protest, complaints, or comments from either experts or politicians.

The 1988 Defence Commission ended its work in December 1989. Obviously, the international security situation had changed dramatically since 1988. Therefore in 1991, a new Committee was established to ‘evaluate the future structure and size of the armed forces, including the extension of conscription, the future defence material acquisitions and the future civil defence force’ (Forsvarskommandoen, 1992, p. 5). This Committee consisted of eight people, four public civil servants including the director of Forsvarets forskningstjeneste (the Research Service of the Armed Forces), and four officers from the DOD and the FKO. No politicians or civil scholars were been included. The military over-influence did not only appear in the composition of the Committee but also in its report. The Foreign Office was – as expected – asked to define Denmark’s security position and did so in Chapter 2 of the report of the Committee, concluding: ‘The new security political situation has in other words made saving [author’s italics] on the defence budgets possible’ (Forsvarskommandoen, 1992, p. 5). Nevertheless, the Committee argued in the following chapters for more military expenditures thereby ignoring the security experts of the Foreign Office and again without any interventions from politicians, from the Ministry, from scholars or the press.

The increased and – from a democratic control point of view – incorrect military influence has three faces here, representation in Committees, ignoring of the Foreign Office’s evaluation of Denmark’s security situation in 1991, and an internal military evaluation of Denmark’s security situation by the Danish Military Intelligence Service in the 1997 Defence Commission and not by the Foreign Office.

A further aspect of military over-influence to the civil community is the lack of information on significant topics such as a suggested abandonment of military conscription in Denmark (Petesen, 2002; Krogh, 2002). A study of independent scholars on this issue will cost money. This is, however, already available as the Danish parliament decided to grant DKK 5 million Danish Crowns per year from 2002 to 2004 for security and defence studies as a result of the 1997 Defence Commission. In 2001, the Defence Committee of the parliament wanted to run a conference on the experiences of other countries having abandoned conscription such as Belgium and The Netherlands. An election stopped the project. Still, people, press and politicians are without solid, balanced and independent information on this vital issue and a recent proposal to the DOD to conduct such a study has been denied. However, recently the defence minister presented experiences from other Western European countries which had abandoned conscription. It was, however, based on information gathered and analysed by Danish military attachés abroad. But their reports are seen as biased as they had to serve the defence minister. For that simple reason, the relevant MPs of the opposition parties abstained from the conference.

Taking all together and from a democratic control of the armed forces point of view, it is a problem that the Danish armed forces are over-represented in Commissions, have no military sociologists who could act as inside military expert. Possibly opponents ignore or contradict security statements by the Foreign Office and deny people, press and politicians information on essential issues such as the possible abandoning of conscription.

Military Disobedience of the JCS

The very favourable position of the Danish armed forces of increased influence may have misled the former Danish Defence Commander (JCS), Christian Hvidt, to think that he was entitled to act – however not for the first or last time[9] – contrary to legal political instructions he received from his political and administrative superiors when the EU Military Committee, consisting of all the national JCSs, elected its chairman in 2001. The story goes like this (the following description is from Jyllandsposten, 2001c):

On 26 March 2001 the EU Military Committee met in Brussels. Three candidates from Portugal, Italy and Finland competed for chairmanship. After a first round the Portuguese candidate was defeated and in the next and final round the Finnish General Hägglunddid beat the Italian one by a narrow 8–7 margin. Four days later, Italians criticised Denmark – as a NATO country – for having voted for the Finnish General Hägglund. It has to be remembered that Denmark in 1993 by a referendum had decided to abstain from the military co-operation of the EU and was granted that status by the other members of the EU at the Edinburgh meeting of 1993, the so-called Danish defence reservations. Consequently, Denmark should not have voted at all, and Hvidt was actually instructed accordingly, in particular if the Danish vote might become decisive.

The political reaction to Hvidt´s contradictory voting was at first that the Danish defence minister and the Danish foreign minister defended Hvidt. But on 9 April at the EU foreign minister meeting in Luxembourg, the other EU countries asked Denmark to define her defence reservations. After that meeting sources from the Danish Foreign Office leaked to the press that both the defence minister and Hvidt were instructed to vote for the Italian General. Released letters from both the Foreign Office and Defence Department proved so and documented that the General had been told to abstain from voting in order to respect the Danish defence reservation and not to vote at all if the Danish vote turned out to be decisive.

The next day back in Denmark, the defence minister and foreign minister told the press that no clear instructions were given to Hvidt which was contrary to the released documents. So, the parliament asked for more information and finally the Danish PM had to admit in the parliamentary question time that it was incorrect of Denmark to vote in the EU Military Committee.

Later on, the media found out that Hvidt and Hägglund were hunting mates. Moreover it came to light that the instruction by the Foreign Office and the DOD to Hvidt was a specific answer to his previous suggestion to propose Hägglund as Chief of Defence of the EU Military Committee. Therefore, Hvidt could not have been in good faith when he voted for Hägglund. Hvidt himself remained silent throughout the whole process, while the now former Danish defence minister did paint himself up in a corner by expressing contradictory statements on what he himself knew about Hvidt´s voting behaviour and what Hvidt was told to do and even whether or not Hvidt was to blame.

The most important issue with respect to the democratic control of the Danish armed forces is that the instruction letter from the Foreign Office explicitly refers to the Danish defence reservations, i.e. a decision made by referendum of the Danish people. Hvidt clearly ignored this most democratic argument, again without any political sanctions or personal consequences.

Hvidt had motive and opportunity but no legitimacy to act on his own. He expanded the already increased military influence given him by ignoring the formal, written and democratic instructions. He should have done as instructed. But he chose the opposite, showing respect neither for his superiors in the DOD, for the Danish parliament nor, even worse, for the highest political will of any nation, that of the public opinion demonstrated in a referendum.

Discussion

The trends and the case study pursued here reveal that the balance of civil military relations has changed in favour of increased military influence. But, even more importantly, the military has not hesitated to expand its influence even further. So we face more paradoxes underlining the improved influential position of the Danish armed forces. First, even if the Danish military has increased its functional and promotional independence having probably the highest degree of sovereignty of all NATO countries, it has ignored superior political and administrative instructions on several occasions. This did not only happen in the Hvidt case, but also with the political directive for more female soldiers, the increased military influence in Defence Commissions, the political influence abroad and at home of senior officers and most decisively almost always without any political sanctions. Secondly, even if the political masters over the last decade have treated the armed forces financially benignly, i.e. supplied it with relatively increased military expenditures, military agencies have repeatedly overspent/mismanaged its resources without being sanctioned. Thirdly, even if civil-military relations have been weakened due to increased professionalisation, i.e. fewer conscripts and civilian employees, the opposite has been the case as the Danish military prestige and positive presence in the Danish media have increased and many supported Hvidt during the debate. All these problems of the democratic control of Danish armed forces will be further discussed for each of the main actors: politicians, media, and the armed forces.

Politicians

From the point of view of the politicians, the problem of civilian control in Denmark is even more severe as ‘defence is undoubtedly the most controversial and most complicated issues in Denmark’s history after 1864’ (Bjerg, 1991, p. 7) and as ‘Danish politicians (in general) lack military insight’ (Petersen, 1980, p. 149). However, the problem of democratic control of the armed forces is not perceived that importantly as ‘defence policy has a relative marginal position in the public debate and the political spectre …’ (Heurlin, 1991, p. 21). So, even if ‘defence policy generally seems to create problems for Denmark’ (Heurlin, 1991, p. 22), it is based on ‘a heavy ballast of consensus’ (Heurlin, 1991, p. 22) among Danish politicians. But this ballast of consensus has not yet been used to sanction Hvidt. In other words, we lack political actions in response to Hvidt´s voting behaviour. But we lack even the demand from Danish politicians to get sound information and independent research when discussing issues such as the possible abandonment of conscription, investment in ships and airplanes. However, some sanctions did occur but for other reasons. Hvidt had to leave his position as JCS a few months before his designated retirement date when he was criticised for planning to spend too much money on his retirement parade. After this incident politicians seem to treat the Danish military more rigidly. It has been told to find reductions in the budget to finance 1,800 ‘forgotten’ soldiers; it has been told that no compensations will be given for the higher cost of currency, oil, weaponry etc., and it has been told that in future further reductions in structure, expenditure and organisational influence are to be expected.

Media

In the first forty years after the Second World War, the Danish media wrote little (only about the military treatment of conscripts and the military budget) and mostly critically on these military matters. However, since the beginning of the 1990s, the Danish media has become more courteous and less critical towards the military, probably due to the increased prestige stemming from the Danish participation in UN-, NATO-, EU- and OSCE-peacekeeping missions (Berlingske Tidende, 1995). Accordingly, the relationship between the media and the military has moved from ambivalent treatment in the Cold War period to a more accepting and courteous treatment in the 1990s. So, for a decade or more, the Danish media have almost given up their role as a fourth control agency next to the legislative, the executive and the judicial power and this weakens the democratic control of the armed forces. But as is the case for politicians, the media have asked more tricky questions and have written more critically about military affairs than previously, for instance about the mine accident in Afghanistan where three Danish and two German soldiers got killed trying to disarm a USSR-missile.

The Danish Armed Forces

The period of passive, uncritical and courteous politicians and media now seems to be over. But this period was not that profitable for the armed forces. Of course, it had its advantages and, on top of that, high-ranking officers expanded their influence even further. But in the long run, it was no good for the armed forces either because its behaviour looked disrespectful to the democratic process jeopardising the broad political support and consensus, the military credibility, and public prestige and financial support.

Another dysfunctional aspect of the increased military influence was the lack of military self-criticism. The more powerful Danish armed forces became, they could have balanced their improved situation by focusing on problems of their own such as the consequences of the changed force structure, the lack of female soldiers, the financial mismanagement etc. But they did not. On the contrary, as demonstrated above, they sometimes even abused their increased political influence.

Explanation

What happened was that senior officers, in particular, thought that they had the right to play an independent political role within and sometimes even against the political system of government and parliament. At face value, the rationale might be the high military self-esteem, which led them to believe that they were entitled to do so. What they actually misunderstood was the distinction between ‘to have’ and ‘to exercise’ democratic control of the armed forces. They seem to believe that democracy is a question of exercising control, meaning that the military system can do what it wants until otherwise instructed and even so ignore the democratic rules. But this is not exactly the case. Democratic control is the self-control of the armed forces to follow and adapt the presumed political will. This applies to Danish civil servants, and it must apply to Danish military servants as well. At stake is the political education of the officers. They need to perceive themselves correctly as servants – and not as actors – of the Danish society.

This does not mean that the military system shall be silent when important questions are to be dealt with in the near future such as:

·                What is the future role of the Danish armed forces? To fight as soldiers as in the Second World War, to deter as they did in the Cold War period, or to alienate from society as they now do in peace support operations abroad?

·                What is the optimal defence structure for Denmark in the future and is it identical to the other NATO or EU countries?

·                How far shall Denmark involve itself in the building of defence structures for the Baltic countries? And perhaps the question above them all:

·                What type of soldier does the Danish political system want to develop: professional, citizen, ambassador, humanitarian worker, policeman, or all of them?

This debate Danish society still owes its armed forces and they – in turn – owe it to the citizens as a minor compensation for their increased influence in society.

Table 13.1               Personnel profile of the Danish armed forces 1945 - 2002[10]

Table 13.2               Women in the Danish armed and military forces 1991 - 2001[11]

Table 13.3            Military expenditures to Danish gross domestic product and per capita 1945-1999[14]

*) Estimation