To Balance Or Not to Balance How Denmark Almost Stayed out of NATO, 1948–1949

To Balance or Not to Balance How Denmark Almost Stayed out of NATO, 1948–1949

✣ Mikkel Runge Olesen

Systemic changes are rare, and state leaders often have difficulty adjusting to them. The end of World War II, combined with the beginning of the Cold War, was undoubtedly one of the most fundamental systemic shifts in the twentieth century, not least for many of the small states of Europe. For them, the war-induced collapse of Germany as a great power, for better or worse, abruptly removed the dominant element of their prewar security systems. This shift was keenly felt in Denmark, whose existence in Germany’s shadow had dominated its foreign policy since its catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Prussians and Austrians in 1864 and Germany’s unification in 1871. The Danish way into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was not an easy one. Rather, for many months in 1948–1949 the Danish government emphasized the prospect of a Scandinavian Defense Union with Norway and Sweden over any Atlantic alliance. Only after negotiations about the Scandinavian union collapsed did participation in the NATO alliance hastily become the government’s top priority. Why did Denmark initially prefer a regional defense pact with Sweden and Norway over inclusion in a much stronger alliance involving the United States? Insofar as Danish officials wanted to balance against the greatest threat they faced (the USSR), one would have expected them to prefer an alliance with the United States from the very start. My aim here is to explain this apparent anomaly.1 The historiography of the Scandinavian Defense Union in general and the Danish decision to join NATO in particular has cited a host of factors to explain Denmark’s policy. Most analyses take some sort of rising Soviet threat as a point of departure but explain the specific Danish decisions to favor the Scandinavian Defense Union first and NATO second as having resulted from

1. This puzzle is closely related to the puzzle of why Sweden never joined NATO. The Swedish case is brieﬂy addressed at the end of the article.

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many other factors, including ideology (pan-Scandinavianism), the domestic political situation, a strong belief in Swedish military power, and, especially given the different policies of the three Nordic countries, various lessons drawn from the Second World War.2 However, such studies either have discussed the Scandinavian Defense Union as merely a single case in a broader research design with numerous cases or have focused on historical experience as one variable among many.3 In contrast to these earlier analyses, this article focuses on the interplay of three variables needed to explain subjective perceptions of threat on the individual and party level in the Danish case. These are the level of external pressure, the level of uncertainty of information about that pressure, and the ingrained assumptions that key decision-makers held about how foreign policy usually works. An understanding of how these variables interacted in generating subjective perceptions of threat can help us discern the internal bargaining that eventually led to concrete Danish foreign policy preferences. This article shows that Denmark’s experience with the German blitzkrieg on 9 April 1940, and the way this experience interacted with the country’s long- standing preference for neutrality, shaped Danish perceptions and interpretations of the diffuse and uncertain Soviet threat in 1948–1949. To ensure that this sort of analysis applies not just to this case but more generally, I begin by devising a theoretical framework capable of handling such combinations.

2. For examples of such analyses, see Nikolaj Petersen, “Optionsproblematikken i Dansk sikkerhedspolitik 1948–49,” in Niels Amstrup and Ib Faurby, eds., Studier i Dansk udenrigspolitik (Arhus:˚ Forlaget Politica, 1978); Nikolaj Petersen, “Danish and Norwegian Alliance Policies 1948–49: A Com- parative Analysis,” Cooperation and Conﬂict, Vol. 14, No. 3 (November 1979), pp. 193–210; Poul Villaume, Allieret med forbehold: Danmark, NATO og den kolde krig: En studie i Dansk sikkerhedspolitik 1949–1961 (Copenhagen: Eirene, 1995), pp. 100–120; and Thorsten Borring Olesen and Poul Vil- laume, “I blokopdelingens tegn,” Vol. 5, Carsten Due-Nielsen, Ole Feldbæk, and Nikolaj Petersen, eds., Dansk udenrigspolitiks historie (Copenhagen: Gyldendal Leksikon, 2005), pp. 105–111. For non- Danish literature on the Scandinavian Defense Union, see, for example, Barbara Haskel, “Forsøket på å skape et Skandinavisk Forsvarsforbund,” Internasjonal politikk, No. 2 (1965); Magne Skodvin, Nor- den eller NATO? Utenriksdepartementet og Alliansespørsmålet1947–1949 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1971); Knut Eriksen, DNA og NATO: Striden om Norsk NATO-medlemskap innen regjeringspartiet 1948–49 (Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1972); Geir Lundestad, America, Scandinavia, and the Cold War 1945–1949 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); Håkan Wiberg “Nuclear-Free Zones as a Process: The Nordic Case,” in Kari Möttôlâ, ed., Nuclear Weapons and Northern Europe (Helsinki: Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 1983); and Dan Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs—Learning, Al- liances, and World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 146–165. 3. Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs; Haskel, “Forsøket på å skape et Skandinavisk Forsvarsforbund”; Petersen, “Optionsproblematikken i Dansk sikkerhedspolitik 1948–49”; Petersen, “Danish and Norwegian Al- liance Policies 1948–49”; Lundestad, America, Scandinavia, and the Cold War 1945–1949;Wiberg, “Nuclear-Free Zones as a Process”; Villaume, Allieret med forbehold; and Olesen and Villaume, “I blokopdelingens tegn.”

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The theoretical international relations (IR) literature has evolved in important ways since the end of the Cold War. Kenneth Waltz’s narrow neorealist focus on structure and power in his 1979 book Theory of International Politics has been challenged by many within the realist tradition. The problem with a strict focus on power is that it makes concrete foreign policy analysis very difficult.4 William Wohlforth contends: “If power influences the course of international politics, it must do so largely through the perceptions of the people who make decisions on behalf of states.”5 Wohlforth’s approach is in keeping with long-standing branches of realism. As early as 1985 Stephen Walt argued that perception of offensive intent was crucial to state alliance behavior.6 Fur- thermore, the realist strain of neoclassical realism, a term coined by Gideon Rose in 1998, also acknowledges the need to focus on perceptions instead of only on power or structure.7 Nevertheless, as is often the case with new solutions, bringing perception into realism creates a new problem: perception is notoriously difficult to mea- sure and operationalize.8 This article attempts to provide such an operational- ization by developing a variant theory that links power and perception in such a way that it can be applied to actual foreign policy decision-making dilemmas. It seeks to do so by drawing on the realms of political psychology. This field has been adopted for IR before—perhaps most prominently by “lessons of the past” literature whose scholars have made use of political psychology in IR to operationalize perception by focusing on the lessons of the past that foreign policy actors use to make sense of the world around them.9 However,

4. Waltz opts out of this challenge with his (in)famous statement that his theory of international politics is not a theory of foreign policy. See Kenneth Waltz, “International Politics Is Not Foreign Policy,” Security Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn 1996), pp. 54–57. However, for realists interested in foreign policy analysis, the problem remains. 5. William C. Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance—Power and Perceptions during the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 2. 6. Stephen Walt, “Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power,” International Security,Vol.9, No. 4 (Spring 1985), p. 12. 7. Gideon Rose, “Review: Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” in World Politics, Vol. 51, No. 1 (October 1998), p. 147. 8. Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance, p. 294. 9. See, inter alia, Ernest May, “Lessons” of the Past (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973); Jervis, Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics; Khong, Analogies at War;Reiter,Crucible of Beliefs; Andrew Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? The Rise, Fall and Reprise of Soviet-Russian In- terventionism, 1973–1996 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999); Jack Levy, “Political Psychology and Foreign Policy,” in David Sears, Leonie Huddy, and Robert Jervis, eds., Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 253–284; and Jeffrey W. Legro, Rethink- ing the World—Great Power Strategies and International Order (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).

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by focusing so much on “lessons,” they pay comparatively little attention to the materialist elements of power. Bridging the “lessons of the past” literature and realism should enrich both fields by allowing each to benefit from the other’s insights. This article aims to explain when, why, and how states and actors develop and change their foreign policy in either a balancing or a non-balancing direction. It does so by combining realist insights about power, here conceptualized as level of “external pressure,” with political psychology insights about perception operationalized through “lessons of the past.” The inclusion of history into neoclassical realism is inspired by Hans Mouritzen.10 However, my analysis diverges markedly in both application and predictions. Whereas Mouritzen primarily focuses on “lessons from history” and “power” as two competing variables striving for influence, I discuss the way they are connected on a cognitive level in a framework determined by situational uncertainty. Without considering the level of uncertainty of information, we have no meaningful way of knowing how much influence lessons are apt to have on foreign policy decision-making.

Theoretical Argument

When will lessons matter? The “lessons of the past” literature points out that the relative complexity or uncertainty of a political situation is likely to influence when lessons are influential and when they are not. Thus, the use of “lessons” as heuristic tools offers a way to “go beyond” the information available either by helping politicians muddle through too much information or by helping them “fill in the blanks” if insufficient or unreliable information is available.11 In light of this uncertainty, we need to abandon a classic conception of the rational actor and instead adopt a bounded rational actor assumption: that actors will strive toward maximizing their interests (above all in national security questions) but will be limited in this process by informational and cognitive shortfalls.12 All in all this amounts to one independent

10. Hans Mouritzen, “Past versus Present Geopolitics—Cautiously Opening the Realist Door to the Past,” in Annette Freyberg-Inan, Ewan Harrison, and Patrick James, eds., Rethinking Realism in Inter- national Relations (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009). 11. Khong, Analogies at War, pp. 12–14; and Bennett, Condemned to Repetition, p. 77. 12. James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer 1995), p. 393.

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variable (external pressure) and two intervening variables (lessons and uncertainty) for explaining balancing in foreign policy.13 Many other variables could have been chosen here; for example, ideological preferences in the choice of ally. For reasons that will become clear, however, the most important variables for explaining balancing behavior in states are external pressure, lessons, and uncertainty. Other scholars have pointed to Nordic solidarity and general pan-Scandinavianism as a strong causal variable for explaining Danish preferences for the Scandinavian Defense Union.14 My concluding section will consider the merits and weaknesses of this alternative hypothesis.

The Strength of External Pressure Relative power remains the main variable in IR realism. However, the term “relative power” lacks a sense of direction. A great power that is already over- stretched with commitments around the globe does not have the same power available to use against a neighbor as an uncommitted great power. I therefore define the first independent variable, external pressure, as the sum of the information available for a given country, A, about the relative capability of another given country, B, to exert influence over areas and issues of vital interest for A as well as B’s will to use its material resources to counter A. What factors determine a country’s relative capabilities? From the literature of geopolitics, I adopt the assumption that the ability to project power wanes over distance as well as because of natural barriers.15 Furthermore, I assume that the power of even a leading great power in a regional context will be limited by that power’s commitments elsewhere.16 Ialsoassumethatpower

13. A methodological argument could be made for calling them moderating variables or even independent variables, but “intervening variables” is the established term within neoclassical realism. See Rose, “Review,” p. 146. For the concept in the methodological literature, see, for instance, Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 11. For a well-known historian’s warning against even attempting to identify true independent variables, see John Lewis Gaddis, “A Naïve Approach to Studying the Cold War,” in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass Pub- lishers, 2000), p. 29. Even though I agree that no true independent variables exist, treating certain variables as “independent” provides the analytical beneﬁt of a stricter focus on those chosen variables. 14. See, for example, Villaume, Allieret med forbehold, pp. 100–120. 15. William Hay, “Geopolitics of Europe,” Orbis, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 295–310; and Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel, “Geopolitical Theory and the Rules of the Game in Europe,” in Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel, eds., The Geopolitics of Euro-Atlantic Integration (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2005), pp. 18–39. 16. Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire—Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 8–9.

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must be seen both in terms of actual military capabilities—that is, quantity and quality of troops, fortifications, and war materials—and potential military capabilities understood in terms of size of population, economic performance, and administrative effectiveness.17 Finally, because strength of external pressure is meaningful only in relative terms, as compared with the aggregated defensive capabilities of the country under pressure, the variable also has to cover alliance possibilities for both the potential attacker and the defender.18 How likely does it seem at the outset of a crisis that foreign help will be forthcoming in a war? Gauging the will of a potential threatening power to commit a certain portion of its capabilities for use against a specific country is difficult. In trying to do so, I add an “aggression-oriented” dimension to “external pressure,” drawing inspiration from Walt’s “balance of threat” theory.19 On the one hand, I include “input signals,” understood as raw information, coming in about a potentially threatening state’s actions and rhetoric.20 On the other hand, I exclude from the “external pressure” variable the subjective preconceptions on the basis of which actors then interpret those signals. These preconceptions are instead represented in the “lessons of the past” variable.

Expected Policy Responses to “External Pressure” I adopt Walt’s position that states, including small ones, are likely to balance against the most threatening powers and tend to bandwagon with less threatening powers rather than merely balancing with the state or states with the greatest capabilities.21 However, because balancing is usually expensive, most states will do so only when presented with a signiﬁcant threat. Further- more, this mechanism functions only for states that are not already deeply in the shadow of a neighboring great power and without realistic balancing

17. Stephen G. Brooks, “Dueling Realisms,” in International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 450–453. 18. See Walt, “Alliance Formation and the Balance of Power,” pp. 34–43, for a good example of alliances as a component for measuring power. 19. Ibid., pp. 11–12. 20. In deﬁning “input signals,” I basically adopt Alexander George’s indirect deﬁnition of inputs as “informational inputs about emerging situations.” See Alexander L. George, “The Causal Nexus between Cognitive Beliefs and Decision-Making Behavior: The ‘Operational Code’ Belief System,” in Lawrence S. Falkowski, ed., Psychological Models in International Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), p. 114. 21. Walt, “Alliance Formation and the Balance of Power,” p. 9.

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Figure 1. Balancing as a Consequence of Unobstructed “External Pressure.”

partners.22 Thus, I venture that both low to moderate pressure as well as overwhelming pressure will tend to spur various non-balancing behaviors. In the case of Denmark, the period of 1948–1949 was characterized by “high” external pressure (from the Soviet Union) but not “overwhelming” pressure insofar as realistic alliance possibilities existed that might deter the Soviet Union. If unobstructed by the other variables, balancing behavior should ensue based on an analysis of “external pressure” (see Figure 1). Politicians, however, do not accommodate “external pressure” unless they are aware of it. The Danes did not simply decide on balancing right away. Therefore, the degree of uncertainty of information about “external pressure” must also be considered.

First Intervening Variable: Uncertainty of External Pressure The world is a complex and uncertain place, and any situation in international politics will tend to entail some degree of uncertainty of information. How- ever, some situations are bound to be more uncertain than others. By “the uncertainty of the external pressure,” I mean the level of difﬁculty connected with analyzing both the external pressure that a country happens to be under as well as the tools available for dealing with that pressure. The term “uncertainty” covers not only lack of information, as is the norm in realism, but also the cognitive difﬁculties in interpreting the information available (level of complexity).23 For each aspect I attempt to judge whether the value of that parameter is uncertain, again based on an analysis of the “input signals.”24 The

22. Ibid., pp. 17–18. 23. Brian C. Rathbun, “Uncertain about Uncertainty: Understanding the Multiple Meanings of a Crucial Concept in International Relations Theory,” International Studies Quarterly,Vol.51,No.3 (September 2007), pp. 535–537. 24. Uncertainty will vary somewhat from person to person because the “complexity” element of the deﬁnition of “uncertainty” is bound to vary according to each individual’s cognitive abilities and time constraints.

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higher the uncertainty of each parameter, the higher the overall uncertainty of the external pressure.25 In the Danish case, the unfruitful Scandinavian Defense Union negotiations in 1948–1949 led to a fall in uncertainty over time because of the simple reduction of options open to Danish politicians.

Second Intervening Variable: Lessons of the Past Foreign policy is in general a highly complex enterprise, and for this reason politicians need cognitive tools for processing information as well as for ﬁlling in the blanks where no information exists.26 How they perceive and use the history of past events plays a major role in this endeavor. But what exactly is a lesson from history? The ﬁeld of political psychology deals with both direct and indirect lessons. A direct lesson is the direct application of a lesson in- ferred from history to a concrete policy decision by way of a historical analogy. An indirect lesson comes from the interplay of many past experiences in the formation of an actor’s schemata. These schemata are the basic assumptions or worldviews that individual actors harbor about social life. In foreign policy decision-making such schemata represent prior knowl- edge about a certain type of situation or type of actor from which new information is processed. Actors use both schemata and analogies to help them process information.27 For my purpose, historical analogies and schemata play the same role; namely, that of information-processing perceptual tools that politicians are especially likely to depend on when uncertainty is high. I therefore lump these two factors together within a single variable called “historical

25. This deﬁnition is along the same lines as those taken by neoclassical realists Steven E. Lobell, Norrin M. Ripsman, and Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, who operate with the concepts of clear and unclear information on threats and measures. I deviate from them, however, in how to analyze that uncertainty. Whereas they focus primarily on domestic constraints understood as the ability of the government to pursue foreign policy when confronted with, for instance, problems in extracting resources from a tax-adverse population, I instead focus on the different perceptions of threat and of steps to counter that threat that different parties or factions entertain. See Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell, “Conclusion: The State of Neoclassical Realism,” in Steven E. Lobell, Norrin M. Ripsman, and Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, eds., Neoclassical Realism, the State and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009) pp. 282–287. 26. Khong, Analogies at War, p. 13; and Susan T. Fiske and Shelley E. Taylor, Social Cognition (New York: Random House, 1984), p. 168. Politicians may also use lessons instrumentally to ensure public support. See, for instance, Khong, Analogies at War, p. 15. For the purpose of this article, however, I limit my focus to lessons that had a direct cognitive inﬂuence on politicians. Methodologically, I attempt to do this by adopting Khong’s suggestion (ibid., p. 63) of intensively using closed-meeting records rather than relying only on public statements. 27. Fiske and Taylor, Social Cognition, p. 140.

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lessons” and in the present article refrain from going deeper into psychological mechanisms.28 The strength of these lessons is then determined by two factors: the level of easily accessible similarities between lesson and case of application and the level of emotional attachment to a particular lesson.29 The stronger the lesson, the more disconﬁrming input information it can withstand before it will be dropped. But how do politicians choose lessons, and how can we determine the strength of each lesson? Often politicians do not choose at all. Rather, lessons are drawn automatically, sometimes gradually, but often as a result of “formative events” such as the last great war.30 In the Danish case, two great shocks formed the basis for the dominating lessons absorbed by Danish foreign policymakers after World War II: the lessons from the German occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940 and the lesson of neutrality that had been followed since roughly the Danish defeat by Prussian and Austrian forces in 1864. Historical lessons can range from strongly opposing to strongly reinforcing, relative to the course of action recommended by an analysis of the strength of the external pressure.31 Thus, an “opposing lesson” refers to a lesson that recommends a foreign policy course that is different from the one expected based on a materialist analysis of the external pressure (see Figure 1). It exerts its inﬂuence by warping politicians’ views of the level and nature of the threat they face or of the basic rules of how the international system functions. A reinforcing lesson, on the other hand, is a lesson that recommends a foreign policy course that conforms to the course one would expect politicians to follow on the basis of an analysis of “external pressure.” In the Danish case study, the “9 April” lesson is coded as reinforcing and the neutrality lesson is coded as opposing, relative to my expectations of balancing behavior when

28. This deﬁnition of lessons is similar to Deborah W. Larson’s broad understanding of “schema.” Deborah Welch Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 50–57. 29. Khong, Analogies at War, p. 14. What are often referred to in the literature as “cold” and “hot” attachments to a lesson, I lump together in this article. For a more detailed account, see Susan T. Fiske, “Schema-Triggered Affect: Applications to Social Perception,” in Margaret Sydnor Clark and Susan T. Fiske, eds., Affect and Cognition—The Seventeenth Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1982), pp. 55–78. 30. Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs, pp. 35–40; Bennett, Condemned to Repetition, pp. 84–85; and Jervis, Perceptions and Misperceptions in International Politics, pp. 235–239. This assumption can also be grounded in social psychology. See, for instance, C. Neil Macrae and Galen V. Bodenhausen, “Social Cognition: Categorical Person Perception,” British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 92, No. 1 (February 2001), p. 248. 31. See Mouritzen’s related distinction between reinforcing and restraining lessons in “Past versus Present Geopolitics,” p. 175.

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under “high” external pressure. The strength of lessons as a variable will be the strength of opposing lessons minus the strength of reinforcing lessons with regard to the foreign policy decision at hand.

Dependent Variable: Balancing or Non-balancing Foreign Policy Either a state can choose to balance against other states, or it can choose to refrain from doing so. This division is somewhat vaguer than the more clas- sical division into balancing and bandwagoning. It also means lumping into non-balancing behavior not merely bandwagoning but also a host of foreign policy options, including Paul Schroeder’s “transcending” (trying to defuse tension through mediation), “hiding” (ignoring the problem), and “specializa- tion” (trying to establish an indispensable niche service); and Waltz’s “buck- passing” (leaving costly balancing to someone else).32 Along the same lines as Wohlforth and his coauthors, I code as “balancing” attempts to “check” dangerous concentrations of power.33 This can be done by a state through a military buildup or through external alliances directed against a threatening state (or coalition of states). Intent is vital for this definition because distinctions between balancing and armed neutrality will otherwise be lost. Using this definition of balancing means seeing balancing as not merely behavior aimed at the buildup of capabilities but as actively choosing sides in an approaching conflict. A central concern for this article is how the three Danish options of isolated neutrality, Scandinavian Defense Union, and joining NATO can be characterized in theoretical terms. Only the NATO option can be characterized as true balancing.34 The Danish government’s pursuit of the Scandinavian

32. See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), pp. 165– 169, for the dynamics, though Waltz himself does not use the term. For a critique, see Paul Schroeder, “Historical Reality vs. Neo-Realist Theory,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 117–119. 33. William C. Wohlforth et al., “Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History,” European Jour- nal of International Relations, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 2007), p. 157. 34. Within theory-guided Danish Cold War research, there has been much debate over the nature of Denmark’s relationship to its adversary, the Soviet Union, and its allies in NATO. Much of the Danish literature has traditionally looked not only at balancing and non-balancing but also at different types of middle-solution strategies between balancing and non-balancing, such as the adaptive acquiescence strategy (where concessions are sometimes made to threatening neighbors, but only reluctantly and deﬁnitely not on core issues). See, for instance, DIIS, Danmark under den kolde krig: Den sikkerhedspolitiske situation 1945–1991,Vol.1,1945–1962 (Copenhagen: DIIS, 2005), pp. 79–85; and Hans Mouritzen, Finlandization: Towards a General Theory of Adaptive Politics (Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1988) pp. 1–11. I agree with many of these insights, not least the conclusions of the DIIS investiga- tion that Denmark was primarily balancing the Soviet Union and, secondarily, its own allies within

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Figure 2. The Causal Chain: When Do Lessons Matter Directly for Politi- cians in Forming Foreign Policy Preferences?

option is better characterized as armed neutrality (non-balancing) designed to safeguard Scandinavia from unwanted outside (Soviet) inﬂuence and to keep Scandinavia on the outside of a World War III.35 (The same is not true, however, for the Liberal-Conservative opposition, which did not wish the union to be completely neutral.)

Process-Tracing of the Theory’s Simplest Possible Chain Figure 2 illustrates the basic mechanics of the part of the theory concerned with the direct inﬂuence of lessons on politicians. “External pressure” con- stitutes the most powerful causal variable and will, if unobstructed, trump

NATO. See DIIS, Danmark under den Kolde Krig: Den Sikkerhedspolitiske Situation 1945–1991,Vol. 4, Konklusion og Perspektivering (Copenhagen: DIIS, 2005), p. 104. However, what remains important for the purpose of this article, which focuses primarily on the interplay between psychological factors (lessons) and factors that are more materialist (external circumstance and uncertainty), is that Denmark primarily pursued balancing behavior. 35. The Soviet attacks in press and radio against the Scandinavian Defense Union—see Bent Jensen, Bjørnen og Haren (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1999), p. 319—could raise the question of whether the Soviet Union saw the Scandinavian Defense Union as a basically hostile (balancing) step directed against the USSR rather than as neutrality. However, even if we assume that Moscow’ perception of Danish foreign policy was that Denmark, by pursuing the Scandinavian Defense Union, was balancing against the Soviet Union, that does not in itself make it so. Only an analysis of the Danish deliberations on the matter can allow us to conclude whether Danish foreign policy was guided by the desire to balance the Soviet threat.

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Figure 3. The Effects of Opposing Lessons on Balancing.

even a strong lesson and alone determine foreign policy.36 “External pressure” can, however, be disabled as the main causal variable if “uncertainty” is high. This means, in practice, that politicians might not be able to figure out immediately what course of action to adopt when faced with an emergency. If guided by opposing lessons, they might “guess” wrongly and end up either balancing or refraining from balancing at the structurally “wrong” moments. Thus, lessons hold potential influence for cognitive reasons when high uncertainty obscures the value of important components of the “external pressure.” Conversely, when uncertainty is low, lessons are not cognitively needed, and opposing lessons can be invalidated. Only when uncertainty is high would I expect lessons to have a significant influence on state behavior in alliance questions. If they are reinforcing, my model predicts foreign policy behavior that is fairly consistent with Walt’s balance-of-threat theory (shown in Figure 1). In such cases, reinforcing lessons help actors process highly uncertain and complex information and identify how their security interests are best served in ways the actors might not be able to see without lessons to guide them. In some circumstances, lessons are a source of foreign policy failure, but in other circumstances they can help prevent failure. If such lessons are opposing, however, they can lead to suboptimal foreign policy. States might then misinterpret the situation and balance too late or balance when they should not—again seen relative to Figure 1. Based on the causal chain described above, my hypothesis for balancing behavior, when opposing lessons dominate in the minds of foreign policy actors, can be formalized as follows (see Figure 3). This model can be applied to the Danish decision to join NATO in 1949 by showing that a drop from high to low uncertainty had to invalidate the

36. For an illustration of such a case, see Hans Mouritzen and Mikkel Runge Olesen, “The Interplay of Geopolitics and Historical Lessons in Foreign Policy: Denmark Facing German Post-war Rearma- ment,” Cooperation and Conﬂict, Vol. 45, No. 4 (December 2010), pp. 85–110.

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chief opposing lesson before Denmark could settle on a “balancing” foreign policy course.

The Danish Decision of 1948–1949: NATO or Scandinavian Defense Union?

This section ﬁrst presents the “old” Danish policy of neutrality that had dominated Danish foreign policy before World War II and to some extent until early 1948. It then moves to a detailed analysis of the Danish decision in 1948–1949 to join NATO.

Denmark’s Policy of Neutrality Until 1948 The Danish neutrality lesson and policy can be traced at least as far back as the traumatic Danish defeat at the hands of the Prussians and Austrians in 1864.37 From then on it was the dominant lesson for Danish security policy, and it was especially important for guiding Danish politicians leading up to and during the two world wars. (Only the Second World War is touched on in this article.) In the 1930s, Denmark lay in Germany’s shadow. This was especially true after Adolf Hitler ascended to power in 1933 and initiated German rearmament programs. On most parameters the threat in (at least) the late 1930s must be characterized as “overwhelming,” especially with regard to the crucial factors of Denmark’s geographical proximity to Germany, Germany’s vast military superiority, the slim prospects of Allied help for Denmark, and Ger- many’s threatening posture.38 Hence, from a theoretical perspective there was no great divergence between the neutrality lesson and the kinds of actions we would expect from an analysis of the external pressure, since such an analysis would most likely conclude that pressure was simply too great for balancing

37. Hans Branner, “The Danish Foreign Policy Tradition and the European Context,” in Hans Bran- ner and Morten Kelstrup, eds., Denmark’s Policy towards Europe since 1945 (Odense: Odense University Press, 2000); and Carsten Holbraad, Danish Neutrality—A Study in the Foreign Policy of a Small State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). In a 1990 article Branner takes this point even further, ar- guing against 9 April as a signiﬁcant causal factor for Denmark’s policy on NATO. Hans Branner, “Vi vil fred her til lands . . . en udenrigspolitisk linje 1940–1949–1989?” Tidskriftet vandkunsten: Konﬂikt, politik og historie, Vol. 3 (April 1990), pp. 53–74. The analysis here shows that 9 April must instead be seen in conjunction with many of the factors Branner mentions as alternative explanations in his article. 38. Holbraad, Danish Neutrality, pp. 59–70.

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to be feasible. The neutrality lesson was therefore a reinforcing lesson at this time. This policy did not prevent the German occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940. Althought it is impossible to know for certain whether any policy might have averted that fate, what is important for the present article is that 9 April 1940 was established as a lesson in its own right, one that stood in stark contrast to the traditional neutrality lesson. For Denmark the end of World War II meant liberation from the Ger- man wartime occupation, and it also meant that the almost constant threat of German aggression, which Denmark had had to live with for eighty years, had been at least temporarily eliminated. Denmark managed to be accepted as an Allied country and as a member of the United Nations (UN), an alliance that after World War II comprised every remaining great power. Therefore, no severe threats immediately presented themselves in the first postwar years. The Danes were greatly concerned by the Soviet Union’s decision to keep control of the Danish island of Bornholm until early 1946, as well as by the relatively great popularity enjoyed by the Danish Communist Party shortly after the war. However, 1945–1947 was a period marked by relatively less tension when compared with the 1930s or the Cold War period. Denmark benefited from the peace between the great powers and was free to focus on economic reconstruction and border issues with defeated Germany.39 When tension began to rise between the Soviet Union and the Western great powers throughout 1946–1947, Denmark’s first response was bridge-building and, when the prospects of this policy looked increasingly poor, a “no-bloc” policy vis-à-vis the competing sides. “No bloc,” however, was in reality a mostly post-World War II name for the now morally tainted word “neutrality.”40 The continued rise of great-power tensions through 1947 eventually gave rise to the idea that a Cold War had broken out between the former Allies from World War II. In this new bipolar world the United States and its allies stood on one side, and the Soviet Union and its subordinate states in Eastern Europe on the other. For Denmark the outbreak of the Cold War presented a choice: to join with the United States in an attempt to balance against Soviet power; or to remain neutral, either alone or in conjunction with the other Scandinavian countries. How can the theory presented here be used to make sense of the Danish decision to accept, grudgingly, NATO membership, but only after the Scandinavian option had failed?

39. Olesen and Villaume, “I blokopdelingens tegn,” pp. 21–22. 40. Ibid., pp. 28–33.

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Strength of External Pressure The gradual rise of the Soviet threat meant that the “external pressure” on Denmark gradually grew from low to high. The materialistic components of “external pressure” had been high already as a result of the conclusion of the war. Most importantly, although the Soviet economy had a much lower power potential than, for example, that of the United States, the Soviet Union had a large land army within easy reach of Denmark and therefore great capabilities for power projection in the Danish area. However, what changed “external pressure” from low/moderate to high for Denmark in 1947–1948 was the changing character of the stream of information coming in both about the international environment in general and about Soviet intentions in particular. On the general level it was clear that the wartime alliance between the great powers was permanently over. This meant that the risk of another large-scale war was rising.41 Danish politicians received increasingly threatening signals about the USSR’s intentions for Europe and its respect for small states in particular. Five pieces of information arriving through early 1948 were particularly disquieting for Denmark in this respect. First, in February–March 1948 the Soviet Union forced upon Finland, a near neighbor and fellow Nordic country, a pact of “friendship” and mutual assistance. Second, the neighboring Norwegians reported in March 1948 that they had good intelligence suggesting they, too, might soon receive a similar “offer.” Third, following the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in March 1948—itself extremely disturbing—the Danish ambassador there reported rumors of Denmark being next on the list. Fourth, the Soviet press had initiated a staunch anti-Scandinavian line of propaganda in early 1948, presumably to put pressure on Denmark to abstain from rearming.42 Fifth, rumors in Washington, derived from U.S. intelligence sources in Berlin, alluded to a forthcoming Soviet attack on Western Europe. These rumors spurred the powerful Danish ambassador in the United States, Henrik Kauffmann, to send home urgent warnings about the dangers of Soviet aggression.43 None of these pieces of information represented a “smoking gun.” Most of the sources were too tenuous for ﬁrm conclusions to be drawn, and leading Danish politicians regarded them with quite a bit of skepticism—at least as indicators of immediate Soviet encroachments on Denmark. Nonetheless, the

41. Ibid., pp. 105. 42. Peer Henrik Hansen and Jakob Sørensen, Påskekrisen 1948 (Copenhagen: Høst og Søn, 2000), p. 56. 43. Bo Lidegaard, I kongens navn: Henrik Kauffmann i Dansk diplomati 1919–1958 (Copenhagen: Samleren, 1996), pp. 446–450.

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information might have played a substantial part in provoking the so-called Danish “Easter Crisis” of late March 1948, when Danish political life and the public at large were gripped by a momentary fearful hysteria about a So- viet attack. The Conservative Party chairman, Ole Bjørn Kraft, later stated in a closed-door meeting in the Defense Commission that the crisis had been merely symbolic—aimed at least in part to prove Danish resolve to the United States.44 The danger was thought to be no more than medium-term. For the analysis here, what is important is that the information about external pressure on Denmark did change in character from 1947 to 1948, suggesting a greater, though by no means certain, risk of Soviet aggression in 1948 when compared to 1947. How this information about “external pressure” was then interpreted differed widely across both party lines as well as across time.

Uncertainty of External Pressure Uncertainty was quite high, especially in 1948, though not equally so for all aspects of the “external pressure.” Thus, even if Danish politicians could not be certain whether the Soviet Union would attack, the possibility of an attack was, after early 1948, so high as to be intolerable.45 The question remained of what to do about it. However, for many of the other aspects of “external pressure” that might help determine the right response, uncertainty was far higher. The power of the Soviet Union and the extent of its interest in occupying Denmark and Scandinavia were unknown. Would Sweden, by far the strongest military power in Scandinavia, be able to enforce Scandinavian neutrality and deter a Soviet attack? Would the United States be willing to deliver weapons to a Scandinavian Defense Union? All these questions initially remained unan- swered when Danish politicians had to choose the strategic lines of Danish foreign policy in 1948–1949.

Three Policy Options Great uncertainty made it difﬁcult for politicians to agree about which of three possible foreign policy courses would be best for Denmark. Throughout the discussion three realistic options were on the table:

44. Hansen and Sørensen, Påskekrisen 1948, pp. 196–197. 45. Aggression toward Denmark from the Western powers was not a serious subject of discussion.

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1. Denmark could retain its current policy course of bridge-building, trusting in the UN’s ability to guarantee Denmark against an isolated Soviet attack and trusting in its neutrality vis-à-vis the con- gealing Cold War blocs to keep Denmark out of a general war. Bridge-building, however, offered no deterrence against an isolated Soviet attack on Denmark, nor did it provide extra military capabilities that might help Denmark counter a Soviet attack in case of war. 2. Denmark could join the proposed NATO alliance in the hope of gain- ing deterrence against an isolated Soviet attack and military help in case of a general war. This option also offered the prospect of weapons deliveries to bolster the country’s feeble defenses. However, it did not offer much hope for Denmark to stay out of a general war, nor did it offer good prospects for immediate military assistance in case of a Soviet attack. 3. Denmark could join the Scandinavian Defense Union with Norway and Sweden. This option promised the extra military capabilities of the far stronger Sweden, which might deter an isolated Soviet attack, and kept alive hope that the union as a whole might still stay out of a general war. Also, unlike help from NATO, Swedish assistance might actually arrive before Denmark was overrun by a Soviet blitz, thanks to Sweden’s close proximity to both Denmark and the USSR. The three factions of Danish foreign policy—the Social Liberal “doves,” the Liberal-Conservative “hawks,” and the moderate Social Democrats—differed in the priority they attached to these options.46 The Social Liberals preferred any non-NATO option, and the Liberals and Conservatives the NATO option. Taking up a middle position, the Social Democratic Party—by far the largest party in Denmark and from late 1947 also the governing party—had the privilege of commanding a working majority with either side (though the broadest and most stable majority lay, by far, with the Liberals and Conser- vatives). The Danish Social Democrats under Prime Minister Hans Hedtoft vastly preferred the Scandinavian Defense Union option, but when it failed to materialize they threw their entire weight behind joining NATO (always their fallback option).47 Isolated Danish neutrality could not be accepted. A structural analysis is insufﬁcient to explain what made the three Danish foreign policy factions differ in their priorities. Each faction’s priorities

46. I exclude two Danish parties from this analysis—the Danish Communist Party and the Justice Party—because their direct importance to a working Danish foreign policy majority was negligible. 47. Villaume, Allieret med forbehold, pp. 103–115.

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differed on the basis of the same structural inputs. But if we look at the lessons in Danish politics of the period, these might help to explain the differences.

The Lessons Two conflicting basic “lessons” about how foreign policy was to be conducted influenced the Danish foreign policy environment of 1948–1949. The first lesson was centered on the analogy of avoiding a new “9 April.” The hu- miliating conquest of Denmark by Germany had taken a single day, 9 April 1940, and the date was the beginning of a five-year occupation. This lesson affected Danish decision-makers to different degrees. Some concluded that military weakness could in itself trigger war, whereas others worried that military weakness would result in occupation in case of war. These thoughts had existed, especially among the Danish “hawks,” even before World War II, but 9 April had strengthened them considerably.48 However, it had also taught politicians that military help would have to arrive very quickly in order to be effective.49 As a perceptual lens this lesson favored deterrence through strength and alliances that secured quick military assistance in case of war. As a lesson it mostly reinforced balancing behavior but was not incompatible with alternative ways of reducing the relative pressure on Denmark, such as the Scandinavian Defense Union. The second lesson focused on neutrality, anti-militarism, and following a policy that promoted bridge-building and relaxation. Though not as clear a historical analogy as the “9 April” lesson, the roots of the neutrality lesson stretched back to the Danish defeat at the hands of the Prussians and Austrians in 1864. Seldom if ever after World War II was the lesson actually formulated as a direct historical analogy to 1864; rather, it represented a schematic way of thinking about the world that had been established by that defeat. The lesson had been widely popular among the “doves” of Danish foreign policy prior to World War II.50 It held, first, that involvement in a great-power war would be disastrous for Denmark and that the only hope for Denmark to avoid par- ticipating in such a war was neutrality. Second, it held that no number of allies and no amount of rearmament would save Denmark from suffering unbearable losses if attacked by a great power. (I identify this as the “neutrality” lesson even though it included a preference for joining the UN and, earlier,

48. Bo Lidegaard, “Overleveren,” in Carsten Due-Nielsen, Ole Feldbæk and Nikolaj Petersen, eds., Dansk udenrigspolitiks historie (Copenhagen: Gyldendal Leksikon, 2003), Vol. 4, p. 257. 49. Petersen, “Optionsproblematikken i Dansk sikkerhedspolitik 1948–1949,” pp. 224–225. 50. Lidegaard, “Overleveren,” pp. 256–259.

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Figure 4. Consistency of Lessons and Options.

the League of Nations insofar as I do not regard Danish participation in these institutions as real alliances in a power-politics framework. Rather, as Hans Branner and Kristine Midtgaard have stressed, Danish support for the League of Nations and the UN should probably be seen as a long-term strategy for disabling the entire power-politics framework.)51 The neutrality lesson was a strongly opposing lesson relative to the expected balancing behavior to high external pressure, but not necessarily precluding other ways of securing increased capabilities, such as the Scandinavian Defense Union, so long as such behavior did not entail choosing sides in great-power confrontations. Consistency between lessons and options is summarized in Figure 4.

The Three Factions and Internalization of Lessons

This section considers the extent to which these lessons had been internalized by each faction and the extent of their impact on the factions’ decision- making.

The Social Liberals The Social Liberals were formed in 1905 on principles of anti-militarism, and this has been one of the cornerstones of the party’s conception of reality ever since.52 Of all the Danish factions, they seem to have been least affected by the “9 April” lesson. Throughout the meetings in the Foreign Relations Com- mittee in 1948–1949, they were the only faction not to pay at least lip service to the analogy of 9 April, although they did not go so far as to challenge it

51. Branner, “The Danish Foreign Policy Tradition and the European Context,” pp. 202–203, 213; and Kristine Midtgaard, Småstat, magt og sikkerhed—Danmark og FN 1949–65 (Denmark: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2005), p. 339. 52. Lorenz Rerup, “Tiden 1864–1914,” in Søren Mørch, ed., Danmarks historie, Vol. 6 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1989), pp. 221–223.

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directly. Instead they focused on promoting their own arguments based on the “neutrality” lesson. One might expect 9 April had done much to damage that lesson, but that was not the case for the Social Liberals. They had never believed that “neutrality” could give Denmark complete security. Instead, the question was how to minimize risk. This is evinced in the way they discussed the NATO option. Behind the closed doors of the Danish Foreign Relations Committee, the party’s chairman, Jørgen Jørgensen, expressed the view that the NATO option would merely “increase the risk without giving any compa- rable advantages.”53 Jørgensen cannot have put much stock in being able to deter an isolated attack on Denmark through an alliance. Social Liberal ideas were structured around the neutrality lesson—not least its element of non-provocation. During the negotiations in the Foreign Relations Committee, Jørgensen first stressed that “any military alliance would constitute a provocation of Russia, which should not be undertaken lightly given the ‘special character’ of the position of the Nordic countries.”54 By “special character” he was undoubtedly referring to the Nordic countries’ close proximity to the Soviet Union and to the Soviet Union’s strategic interests in the area. Deterrence through force of arms was thought to be impossible by the Social Liberals because they “doubted that Denmark could ever obtain sufficient quantities of weapons to influence Russia’s considerations regarding the question of war.”55 When the Social Liberals decided to support the idea of the Scandinavian Defense Union, the aim was not to increase Danish capabilities (something that could not be done sufficiently anyway) but to avoid the NATO option and perhaps even encourage “relaxation.” Thus, for the Social Liberals, neutrality and anti-militarism were the only tools Denmark had, and the stakes were high. In December 1950 a leading member of the Social Liberals, Bertel Dahlgaard, told the party’s Main Board: “With the use of atomic bombs and bacteriological warfare the Euro- pean economy will drop to such low levels of human misery, with millions of deaths, that the Europe we have known will be gone.”56 This fear of the

53. Meeting in the Danish Foreign Relations Committee (FRC), 18 January 1949, in Rigsarkivet (RA), Udenrigsministeriets Arkiv (UM), 3.E.92; emphasis added. This and all following quota- tions from Danish politicians are, unless otherwise noted, my own translation from the Danish original. 54. FRC, 12 November 1948, in RA, UM, 3.E.92. 55. Jørgen Jørgensen in the FRC, 26 January 1949, in RA, UM, 3.E.92. 56. Notes from Social Liberal Board meeting, 18 December 1950, pp. 6–8, in RA, Bertel Dahlgaard’s private archive. Although uttered more than a year after the Danish decision to join NATO in the face of Social Liberal protests, and although uttered after the Soviet Union had tested its ﬁrst nuclear weapons, this was in all likelihood also the Social Liberals’ position in 1948–1949. Perhaps the reason

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consequences of war made it almost irrelevant to plan for what would happen if war broke out again. If neutrality failed, no number of allies would save Denmark from suffering unbearable losses.

Liberals and Conservatives For the Liberals and the Conservatives the lesson of 9 April was strongly internalized. This was partly because the “9 April” lesson was not especially new for them. Ideas similar to the lesson of 9 April had long flourished, especially in the traditionally defense-friendly Conservative Party.57 Furthermore, the Conservative and Liberal interpretation specifically of 9 April ran into no problems when it was applied to the Soviet Union instead of Germany. On this point it combined neatly with their schemata about Communism. Thus, Conservative official Kraft plainly stated in the Foreign Relations Committee in January 1949 that he thought it clear that “the Russian expansion was tied to Communist ideology which aimed at world conquest.”58 Kraft stressed the direct analogy between Germany and the Soviet Union to the political elites of the three Scandinavian countries gathered just a few days later at the closed- door Scandinavian Defense Union summit in Copenhagen. The occasion was a discussion about the dangers of aggression from the Soviet Union as a consequence of Scandinavian deviation from neutrality. Kraft brushed aside this fear because “the Soviet Union—like Germany—is driven only by military strategic considerations.”59 The meaning was clear: The Soviet Union aimed at world conquest, and therefore a policy of appeasement or non-provocation of any kind was futile. Only strength could influence Soviet considerations of war. Of the lesson of neutrality there is little trace. A critical element in their rejection of that lesson was 9 April. Kraft stated in early 1948 in the Foreign Relations Committee that even though it “might be relevant to proclaim neutrality to the outside world, we should not entertain any illusions that this neutrality will be capable of keeping us safe any more than it did before [on 9 April 1940]. It is not wise to adopt once more the old policy of neutrality.”60

they did not use this argument directly was that the Justice Party, which mostly supported the Social Liberals on the matter, beat them to it in the Foreign Relations Committee by stating that “a war risked the entire existence of the Danish people.” See FRC, 2 March 1949, in RA, UM, 3.E.92. 57. Lidegaard “Overleveren,” p. 248. 58. FRC, 18 January 1949. 59. Copenhagen summit, 22 January 1949, in RA, UM, 105.B.1a. 60. FRC, 6 February 1948, in RA, UM, 3.E.92.

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Whereas the neutrality lesson had induced the Social Liberals to dismiss the question of how to manage an actual attack from a great power, the Liberals and Conservatives sought to plan both for keeping Denmark out of war and for considering how to get Denmark through a war.61 However, because the “9 April” lesson was thought to demonstrate the need for deterrence and defense through strength, both of these functions were mostly served by the same measures; namely, by rearming and by concluding robust alliances.62 Rearmament and securing strong allies were therefore the top priorities for the Liberals and the Conservatives.

The Social Democrats The Social Democrats shared the Liberal and Conservative view that Danish priorities were to try to avoid war and to get through wars that proved un- avoidable.63 They also shared the view that 9 April had shown that strength was needed to achieve those goals. For the Social Democrats, however, 9 April was to a far greater extent a “new” lesson. The Social Democrats had been in government in the 1930s and had been responsible for Danish neutrality during that period, and Social Democratic Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning and Social Liberal Foreign Minister P. Munch had executed the Danish neutralist line.64 The occupation of 9 April 1940 was therefore more of a fundamental break for the Social Democrats than for the Liberals and Conservatives. At the Foreign Relations Committee in early 1948, before any alliance options were yet on the table, Prime Minister Hedtoft made clear “the importance of com- mitting all forces of good to preventing a repetition of 9 April.”65 Denmark had to ﬁnd a way to increase its capabilities to prevent a new 9 April. The Social Democrats did not, however, give the same credence to the Liberal and Conservative view that war was avoided only through strength. They were instead affected by both lessons on this point. Prime Minister Hedtoft clearly avowed, again in the Foreign Relations Committee in early

61. Liberal Chairman Knud Kristensen in FRC, 12 November 1948. 62. With the possible exception of strategic (especially nuclear) deterrence. 63. Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen, FRC, 12 November 1948. I take Rasmussen’s view to be representative of the governing Social Democratic Party even though he was not formally a member of that party. 64. For a comprehensive analysis of the Stauning-Munch foreign policy line of the 1930s, see Lide- gaard, “Overleveren,” pp. 253–385. 65. FRC, 24 March 1948, in RA, UM, 3.E.92.

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1948, that “if a situation of conflict should arise, the option of keeping Den- mark outside the conflict had to be adopted.” He thought it unwise to “con- firm by public statements that we belong in the West.”66 At play here was probably also the deep suspicion of the United States that still existed within the Social Democratic Party, a suspicion rooted in a general distrust of great powers. This aversion was also expressed by the chairman of parliament, Julius Bomholt, namely the worry that the United States would drag Denmark toward whatever policy served U.S. national interests.67 In this, implicitly, lay the fear that not only the Soviet Union but also the United States could start a new world war, a war in which Denmark would likely become involved against its will. The neutrality lesson was very much an “old” lesson for the Social Democrats, having been seriously damaged by the occupation. Nevertheless, it still carried weight. The Social Democrats’ internalization of the neutrality lesson was not quite identical to that of the Social Liberals, however. The Social Democrats’ neutrality lesson did not include the Social Liberal assumption about capabilities as irrelevant and actually came much closer to the Swedish interpretation of the neutrality lesson of armed neutrality through strength.68 This shift probably represented the first impact of the “9 April” lesson on the “old” established neutrality lesson for the Social Democrats. For Prime Min- ister Hedtoft, a fusing of the two lessons seemed quite far developed. At the end of the Copenhagen summit on 24 January 1949, he framed 9 April not as a failure for neutrality per se but as a result of the lack of will to stand together in Scandinavia prior to World War II. He urged the other participants to continue the negotiations, stating that “we have a duty to prevent a new split like in 1940–45.”69 The implication was that Scandinavian unity might have saved Denmark and Norway (though probably not Finland) during World War II. The presence of each lesson in each of the factions can now be summed up in Figure 5.

66. FRC, 21 January 1948, in RA, UM, 3.E.92. 67. Copenhagen summit, 22 January 1949. 68. Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs, pp. 157–165. Closely related to the Swedish lesson is the geopolitical lesson that a nearby ally was potentially worth more than a distant but stronger ally. Lidegaard argues that Prime Minister Hedtoft bought into this kind of thinking and that it was, furthermore, old- fashioned because it largely disregarded the new concept of nuclear deterrence. Lidegaard, Ikongens navn, p. 474. 69. Copenhagen summit, 22 January 1949, in RA, UM, 105.B.1a, emphasis added.

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Figure 5. Lessons Internalized by Each of the Three Factions.

Factions, Lessons, and Priorities: To Balance or Not to Balance?

The Social Liberal Party’s strong internalization of the neutrality lesson greatly affected how the party interpreted Denmark’s situation and the options that were open. The lesson restrained them from making any interpretation that could lead to balancing. Non-balancing was preferable because balancing, in general, was too costly. Taken to the extreme, this meant, in theoretical terms, erasing all distinctions between a “high” threat and an “overwhelming” one by viewing the price for balancing as unacceptable in both types of instances. No alliance or rearmament could save Denmark from utter destruction in the event of a third world war, and therefore Danish balancing held no advantages, only drawbacks. Not surprisingly, continuation of the existing policy of bridge-building and isolated neutrality was the preferred option, though this did not mean that the party was blind to the seriousness of the situation. The existing policy was simply the best choice among many bad ones. Second best was the Scandinavian Defense Union, which the party would support “if forced to choose one of the two [i.e., Scandinavian Defense Union or NATO].”70 This option was not quite as repulsive to the party as these words might imply, for it did offer the possibility of more-effective Dan- ish bridge-building. Thus, in Jørgensen’s view, as stated in the Foreign Re- lations Committee, “a neutral Scandinavia might even promote general relaxation.”71 The element of the union as a means for increasing Danish military capabilities, however, was largely ignored by the Social Liberals because of their somewhat fatalistic outlook about the prospects of making it through a war, an outlook imprinted on them by the lesson of neutrality. Both options had elements of “hiding” and “transcendence” to them, although the Scan- dinavian Union perhaps tilted somewhat more toward “transcendence” than

70. FRC, 17 January 1949, in RA, UM, 3.E.92. 71. Ibid.

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toward “hiding.” Nevertheless, both preferred options should be seen as dis- tinctive non-balancing practices. The third option, NATO membership, like the Scandinavian Union, offered, in the minds of the Social Liberals, no real military advantage for Denmark in the case of war. Nor did it offer the possibility for bridge-building (if anything, it did the opposite), and it carried the dangerous increased risk of getting dragged into a war that might otherwise have been avoided. Not surprisingly, NATO membership, the only balancing option on the table from a Social Liberal perspective, was therefore staunchly opposed. The Liberals’ and the Conservatives’ internalization of the “9 April” lesson made them interpret the inputs coming from the outside world quite differently from the Social Liberals. The two parties considered the Soviet pressure “high” but not “overwhelming.” In their view the Soviet pressure could and should be met with strength. The NATO option offered by far the most in this respect and, as the most effective balancing option, was therefore favored by the faction.72 The Scandinavian Defense Union could be accepted as a secondary choice only if the United States was willing to supply it with weapons and if union membership did not mean distancing Den- mark from the Western powers.73 Any Scandinavian neutrality would have to tilt Westward for the Liberal-Conservative faction to accept it.74 Thus, the Liberal-Conservative faction and the Social Liberals differed markedly in their conceptions of the Scandinavian Defense Union. For the Liberal-Conservative faction, unlike the Social Liberals, it was primarily about increasing military capabilities and not about relaxation. Because the Liberal-Conservative ofﬁcials wanted to ensure that the union was at least Westward tilting (and thereby contributing to the West’s attempts to “check” Soviet power), the option represented, in their view, no more than a “second best” and limited balancing option. The Social Democrats’ internalization, at least partly, of the two conﬂict- ing lessons made them by far the most ambivalent of the factions. The lesson of 9 April suggested the need for strength both for deterrence and for use in case of war. Because of Denmark’s small size, the country would not be safe on its own. The neutrality lesson suggested that joining a large alliance might in itself carry risks of war. Thus, the 9 April lesson militated against isolated neutrality, and whereas the neutrality lesson weighed against joining NATO.

72. Kraft made this point in the FRC, 18 January 1949. 73. Ibid. 74. FRC, 12 November 1948.

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The solution to this dilemma for the Social Democrats lay in the Scandina- vian option, which could serve as a useful “middle” solution. In theoretical terms, the alliance with Sweden in particular might change the situation from one of “high” pressure on Denmark to only “moderate” pressure on the defense union. Aggregated Scandinavian capabilities might approximate a local match for Soviet capabilities, given the natural limits on the number of troops the Soviet Union could be expected to allocate to a Scandinavian campaign. Also, although relatively great, Moscow’s interest in Scandinavia was only one of many factors shaping Soviet planning. Thus, the Scandinavian Defense Union provided, at least on paper, increases in capabilities that were compa- rable in relative terms with those offered by NATO.75 At the same time it only marginally increased, compared with isolated neutrality, the risk of getting chain-ganged into a new war. When the Scandinavian Defense Union plans unraveled over U.S.- Norwegian-Swedish disagreements, especially over the prospects for U.S. weapons shipments to the pact, the Social Democrats lost their greatly preferred middle option.76 This development polarized the other factions and reinforced for each of them their respective conﬂicting priorities by remov- ing any semblance of common ground between them. The Social Democrats, however, now faced the painful issue of having to choose between two options neither of which they particularly liked. Why was NATO and not isolated neutrality their secondary choice? The answer lies in the level of uncertainty. Even if regrettable, the failure to establish the Scandinavian Defense Union made the situation considerably less “uncertain” for the Social Democrats. True, it was still uncertain whether a war would come and whether the Soviet Union was planning an isolated attack on Denmark. However, the removal of the Scandinavian option decreased uncertainty for the Social Democrats insofar as it largely eliminated the possibility for viable armed neutrality. This outcome discredited the neutrality lesson by reducing its ability to offer recommendations for a Danish defense in case of war. Failure to address that question was not acceptable for the Social Democrats. Fear of the Soviet Union was too great. This is illustrated by an incident that took place on 9 September 1948, when Soviet bombers

75. This mechanism was a sort of “local balancing” with the Swedes in response to pressure that was “locally high.” In the traditional sense of the word “balancing,” however, this policy amounted to no more than armed neutrality, which might better be termed “buck-passing”—especially because Sweden’s Cold War strategy was anchored in a determination to stay out of any showdown between East and West. See Wilhelm Agrell, Fred og fruktan—Sveriges säkerhetspolitiska historia 1918–2000 (Lund: Historiska Media, 2000), p. 144. 76. Villaume, Allieret med forbehold, pp. 108–115.

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violated Danish airspace over the Danish island of Bornholm. After the initial panic died down when the bombers turned around, Danish Defense Minister Rasmus Hansen glumly remarked to the key ministers gathered for the crisis: “We have been given a stay of execution.”77 The lesson of armed neutrality became non-viable for the Social Democrats in the absence of the Scandinavian Defense Union option. External pressure became the determining variable, reinforced and perceived through the “9 April” lesson, thus ensuring Social Democratic support for NATO. Hedtoft’s words at the Social Democratic Main Board Meeting, just after the breakdown of the Scandinavian Defense Union negotiations, made clear that NATO was the only vialbe option left:

If we were to bring ourselves into a situation where we decline both the tenta- tive query from the US [about NATO] and an eventual Russian treaty of non- aggression, we could end up holding the responsibility for deliberately having paved the way for a new 9 April situation. No one in this congregation will blame those men who sat by the rudder on 9 April 1940. They were our friends andbestofcomrades....Butletusmakeitcompletelyclearthatthiscannotbe repeated. We have an obligation to learn from what happened back then. . . . I know that this is a hard decision which will cost each responsible man a soul-felt struggle, but a decision must be made.78 This shift was especially painful for Hedtoft, but the Social Democrats were not unprepared for it.79 The NATO option had been pursued simultaneously as a fallback option even while the Scandinavian Defense Union plans were inchoate.80 The parties’ priorities at this point are depicted in Figure 6. Given the advantageous parliamentary position of the Social Democratic Party and the relative preferences of the two other factions, the story of how the Social Democrats’ priorities became Danish priorities is easy to understand. The party was able to force the two other factions to come along in pursuing the Scandinavian option that also served as a kind of national compromise. But when that option proved abortive, the Social Democrats felt forced to choose sides and went with NATO, which for them was the

77. Cited by Jens Otto Krag in his diary entry of 14 September 1948, in Arbejderbevægelsens Bibliotek of Arkiv (ABA), C, diary 14 September 1948, quoted in Bo Lidegaard, Jens Otto Krag 1914–1961, Vol. 1 (Denmark: Gyldendal, 2001), p. 321. 78. “Hans Hedtofts tale for Socialdemokraternes Hovedbestyrelse 27. Februar 1949,” 27 February 1949, in Hans Hedtoft’s Arkiv (HHA), ks. 9, læg 5, quoted in Olesen and Villaume, “I blokopdelingens tegn,” p. 112. 79. Olesen and Villaume, “I blokopdelingens tegn,” p. 111. 80. Ibid., p. 108.

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Figure 6. Parties and Priorities.

only option remaining that gave Denmark the increased capabilities it so ur- gently needed. The “security alliance” that was thereby formed between Social Democrats, Liberals, and Conservatives was to dominate Danish security policies for the next decade. A focus on lessons thus pays off when analyzing the Danish decision to join NATO. It helps explain why Denmark almost certainly would have joined the Scandinavian Defense Union if the option had been feasible— contrary to most realist expectations. We also see how lessons actually affected the way three responsible political factions interpreted the same structural factors and came up with three widely different preferences for what would best promote Denmark’s national interests. If the Social Democrats had internalized only the “9 April” lesson, as the Liberals and the Conservatives had, Den- mark would have opted for NATO right away. If they had internalized only the Social Liberal neutrality lesson, they would have continued the Danish course of bridge-building and isolated neutrality. It might seem that realism and “external pressure” are not even needed to explain the decision, but the lessons alone cannot explain the timing of events. Both lessons were well established already in 1945, and yet Denmark did not seek alliances beyond the UN until 1948. Changes in external pressure were what gradually discredited the neutrality lesson by doing away with all realistic options that could accommodate both lessons. Isolated neutrality and reliance solely on UN membership were abandoned by the Social Democrats, Liberals, and Conservatives at an early stage, and the failure of the Scandinavian Defense Union at the beginning of 1949 put a ﬁnal end to any idea of armed neutrality.

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The continued presence of the “9 April” lesson means we cannot char- acterize the ﬁnal decision to join NATO as purely data driven. The lesson of 9 April was never dispelled (because it was a reinforcing lesson), and Den- mark would probably not have joined NATO had that lesson not been so salient. Without it, Danish politicians might well have chosen to wait for more “proof” of Soviet hostility. The “9 April” lesson helped politicians make sense of “external pressure” and might have enabled them to decide to balance in a situation in which uncertainty might still have been too strong to cloud a purely data-driven analysis. The decision came about only because a drop in uncertainty about the external pressure had discredited the neutrality lesson and left the “9 April” lesson unscathed.

The Ideologically Centered Alternative Hypothesis: Did the Danes Just Like the Swedes and Norwegians More?

In light of the analysis here, we need to consider whether we can really accept the national-interest-based discourse at face value. Might Scandinavianism, understood as the idea of a special community among the three Scandina- vian countries anchored in a common way of life, have been an important factor behind the national security–centered argument? This alternative hypothesis is extremely difﬁcult to falsify because an explanatory model with Scandinavianism as a crucial causal factor offers an alternative explanation for why Scandinavia was Denmark’s highest priority. For a politician, having two reasons to do something simply makes reaching a decision that much eas- ier. Prime Minister Hedtoft regarded the failure of the Scandinavian Defense Union as perhaps the greatest tragedy of his career exactly because it represented a lost opportunity for Scandinavian unity.81 Nevertheless, analysts seek- ing to identify causal connections must determine which factor was of greatest importance. This article indicates that a boundedly rational approach to national interests (through lessons of the past) can explain the actions of Danish politicians to a greater extent than ideological preference for Scandinavian cooperation. Two factors should be considered in this regard. First, we need to

81. For mentions of Hedtoft’s Scandinavianism in the literature, see, for example, ibid., p. 123; Lide- gaard, Jens Otto Krag 1914–1961, p. 331; Jensen Bjørnen og Haren, pp. 341–343; and Villaume, Allieret med forbehold, p. 120.

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bear in mind that the main line of argument in the Foreign Relations Com- mittee was anchored in a security discourse rather than in Scandinavianism. This is especially important given that the Social Democrats were not alone in having an ideological commitment to Scandinavian cooperation. Scandina- vianism was also quite strong in the Conservative and Liberal Parties, both of which nevertheless clearly favored NATO.82 Second, shortly after the failure of the Scandinavian Defense Union had become apparent in February 1949, Danish Prime Minister Hedtoft made overtures to the Swedes concerning the prospects for a bilateral Danish-Swedish alliance.83 This was immediately re- jected by the Swedes, whose strategic interests in Norway were far greater than in Denmark. The Danish overtures could be linked somewhat to the ideological hypothesis insofar as Denmark might have preferred even Sweden alone over NATO because Sweden was more culturally similar. Nevertheless, the fact that Hedtoft still attempted the Danish-Swedish option, no matter how slim its chances, suggests that at least the thought of Scandinavian unity was less important in the Danish strategic calculations than the prospects of a neutrality backed by Swedish military power.84

Theoretical Generalizability beyond the Danish NATO Decision

Although an elaborate theoretical framework can be easily constructed to explain a single case in detail, the obvious question for any one theoretically driven case study is how general the theoretical points might be. My explo- ration of this question is conducted within the tradition of Harry Eckstein’s ideas about the plausibility probe.85 Such probing can be across time or space or both. The following shows such a probing across space by looking at the

82. Villaume, Allieret med forbehold, p. 114. 83. Ibid., p. 115; and Olesen and Villaume, “I blokopdelingens tegn,” p. 111. 84. Closely related to the alternative hypothesis about ideological commitment to Scandinavia is the idea that the Danish view of Swedish military capabilities and geopolitical proximity might have been favorable enough to make Danish politicians believe that Swedish military assistance was more valuable than NATO assistance. Although this hypothesis is impossible to dismiss completely for the Social Democrats, the traditionally more defense friendly Liberal Conservative opposition did not seem to think so. Furthermore, the Scandinavian Defense Commission clearly stated in January 1949 that a Scandinavian Defense Union could never hope to stand alone against the Soviet Union for a longer period. See Olesen and Villaume, “I blokopdelingens tegn,” p. 108. 85. Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby, eds., Strategies of Inquiry,Vol.7,Handbook of Political Science (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp. 79–137.

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Norwegian and Swedish decisions on alliances during the same period in response to dilemmas similar to those found in the Danish case.86

Probing the Theory across Space: The Norwegian and Swedish Decisions on NATO The theory developed herein and demonstrated in the case of Denmark’s re- luctant decision to join NATO need not be limited to this one empirical puzzle. The Norwegian and the Swedish alliance decisions of 1948–1949 were similar to the Danish case insofar as they also had to choose between the Scan- dinavian Defense Union, NATO, and isolated neutrality. A consideration of the analytical power of the theoretical framework for explaining these cases is thus worthwhile. Regarding the influence of lessons, several works on Norway and Sweden suggest that their own equivalents of the “9 April” lesson were dominant in formerly German-occupied Norway and that the neutrality lesson was dominant in Sweden, which successfully maintained a degree of neutrality during World War II.87 But were these lessons as conspicuous as in the Danish case, and did they affect policy through a similar interplay with external pressure and uncertainty? A pilot interview conducted with Even Lange, the son of influential Nor- wegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange, suggests that the equivalent of the “9 April” lesson might also have been very influential in Norway and might therefore show up in the relevant archives if investigated in a manner similar to the one pursued here. Lange recounted how his father retold a story of having gone alone to a meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molo- tov in 1946 to discuss an issue related to Svalbard. After being led through a seemingly endless number of offices and subjected to what he saw as in- tense psychological pressure, he abruptly came to feel that he was back in the German concentration camp Sachsenhausen, where he had been incar- cerated during World War II. This incident and the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948 were, according to Lange, the two most important

86. For a more extensive testing of a similar theoretical framework on both the Danish NATO decision and several other key Danish foreign policy decisions since 1863, see Mikkel Runge Olesen, “In the Eye of the Decision-Maker: A Theoretical Framework for State Reactions to Their External Environments Probed through Examinations of Key Danish Foreign Policy Decisions since 1864,” Ph.D. Diss., University of Copenhagen, 2013. 87. See for example, Skodvin, Norden eller NATO?, pp. 102, 247 (Norway); Eriksen, DNA og NATO, pp. 153–154, 255 (Norway); Lundestad America, Scandinavia, and the Cold War, pp. 356–357; Wiberg “Nuclear-Free Zones as a Process,” p. 15; and Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs, 1996, pp. 146–157 (Norway), 157–165 (Sweden).

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incidents hat convinced his father of the parallel between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.88 Lange’s story is of course anecdotal and not a substitute for more solid documentation based on thorough archival research. However, along with the similar preliminary findings in the existing literature, it suggests that such archival work would be worth undertaking. The documents might explain why the Norwegians insisted at the Copenhagen summit that any Scandinavian Defense Union had to be able to deliver as much security (understood as hard military deterrence) to Norway as Norwegian NATO membership would. Finally, in contrast to Denmark, Norway had managed to fight the German invasion for two months with the assistance of the British and the French and had continued the war from exile in London after that. Whereas the Danes had been overrun in a day, the Norwegians had, aided by geography and by improvised foreign assistance, almost succeeded in mount- ing a defense in the northern part of Norway. This might well have played a key role in instilling the idea that military help, if it was to do any good, had to be prepared beforehand.89 Soviet pressure seen through the Norwegian variant of the “9 April” lesson made the Norwegians believe that only power-maximizing could save them from invasion. In practice, if the proposed Scandinavian Defense Union was to be formally unaligned, this meant the Norwegians would have to insist on some sort of guarantee—or at least declared goodwill—from the Western powers toward the Scandinavian Defense Union.90 For the Swedes, the influence of the neutrality lesson is clearer. At the Scandinavian Defense Union summit, Swedish parliamentarian J. E. G. Fast emphasized that “the Swedish Social Democratic party had grave doubts about abandoning the policy that [has] so far been pursued with success.”91 His statement came as no surprise to the other participants because the Swedish foreign policy line had long been known, at least in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to be in strict adherence to the line of neutrality.92 What, then, made the Swedish foreign policy line stand apart from the Danish and the Norwegian lines? Contrary to the Norwegians, but much like the Danish Social Democrats, seeing Soviet pressure through the (Swedish)

88. Even Lange, interview, Oxford, UK, December 2010. 89. Haskel, “Forsøket på å skape et Skandinavisk Forsvarsforbund,” p. 116; and Eriksen, DNA og NATO, p. 152. 90. Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen, Copenhagen summit, 23 January 1949, in RA, UM, 105.B.1a. 91. Ibid. 92. See, for example, Ministry of Foreign Affairs report, August 1948, in RA, UM, 105.B.1a.

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neutrality lesson led the Swedes to believe that a combination of strength and non-provocation, as well as nonalignment in a policy of armed neutrality, were sufficient to meet the threat. This explains why the Danes and the Swedes agreed on how the Scandinavian Defense Union ought to look. Unlike both the Danes and the Norwegians, however, the Swedes could dismiss their variant of 9 April as a reason to change policy because their own fortune during the war made them conclude that 9 April–like invasions happened only to the weak. Finally, the Swedes had options that were not quite identical with the Norwegian and Danish options from a materialist standpoint. The options of NATO membership and a Scandinavian Defense Union might have had roughly the same end results for the Swedes as for the Danes and Norwegians, but the Swedes could back their third option of isolated neutrality with far more military power than either the Danes or Norwegians could on their own. This does not mean the Scandinavian Defense Union was not still judged to be militarily advantageous for Sweden. The prospect of having to commit to the defense of geographically vulnerable Denmark might have been mixed, but it opened up the possibility that the Swedish military could deny the So- viet Union an avenue of attack through Norway. Furthermore, the defense union was seen as a way of keeping those two countries from formally choosing sides in the Cold War.93 The military need for such a pact, however, was less urgent for the Swedes than for the Norwegians and Danes. The fact that Sweden had no direct “9 April” lesson, together with the lower degree of external pressure relative to the substantial Swedish military capabilities, spurred Swedish officials to insist on nonalignment for the Scandinavian Defense Union. Additionally, it made them accept isolated but armed neutrality when the union eventually failed (largely as a result of Norwegian-Swedish disagreements and U.S. unwillingness to supply the union with weapons). For both the Norwegian and the Swedish cases, however, it remains to be shown through detailed case studies, conducted in the same formalized manner suggested in this article, that the interaction between the variables fully matches the predictions of the framework presented here. Furthermore, cases beyond Scandinavia should be explored as well. Dan Reiter’s Crucible of Beliefs, which broadly investigates the influence of lessons involved in the alliance decisions of a host of small countries leading up to World War II and

93. Agrell Fred og Fruktan, pp. 104–106.

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the Cold War, suggests an effect of historical experience in those countries.94 Future studies will not need to look long for new case studies related to the early Cold War period.

Conclusion

This article has developed a theoretical model for explaining state balancing behavior in general, and the Danish NATO decision of 1948–1949 in particular. It has done so by focusing on the “lessons of the past” that policymakers employ to cope with uncertainty and complexity. The model takes account of perceptions without disregarding structural incentives. Consequently, it al- lows the model to say something about why states sometimes balance and why at other times they do not. The “lessons of the past,” “uncertainty,” and various variables similar to the “external pressure” variable have been used before in IR analysis of foreign policy. However, this article shows that the foreign policy of a country such as Denmark should be explained not through the cumulative adding up of the variables but by focusing on their interplay. Lessons, uncertainty, and external pressure interacted in generating the subjectively perceived foreign policy situation on the basis of which individual Danish decision-makers, as well as Danish political parties, had to make decisions regarding NATO and the Scandinavian Defense Union. This is especially vital in understanding why the Danish Liberal-Conservative opposition had a signiﬁcantly more positive view of NATO than the Social Democratic government. The case of Denmark’s decision in 1948–1949 to join NATO, as well as the Norwegian and the Swedish plausibility probe cases, shows that balancing behavior can sometimes be delayed (or discarded). This is especially likely when the situation is uncertain and complex and when politicians are affected by lessons, such as the Danish neutrality lesson, that restrain balancing behavior. Denmark’s decision to join NATO demonstrates how different parties, all striving to formulate the “best” foreign policy for the country, could end up with radically different foreign policy prescriptions. In this case balancing behavior—that is, “checking” the Soviet Union via NATO membership—was not pursued as long as the Scandinavian Defense Union offered a solution that was acceptable for those who employed both the neutrality lesson and the “9

94. Reiter, Crucible of Beliefs, p. 97.

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April” lesson. A decrease in uncertainty, brought about by the failure of the Scandinavian Defense Union, was needed to discredit the neutrality lesson by bringing it into direct conﬂict with the stronger “9 April” lesson. When that happened, the ominous information coming in about Soviet power and intentions was seen through the prism of the “9 April” lesson alone. Balancing the Soviet Union through NATO consequently became the only viable option for all Danish politicians except the Communists and the most committed neutralists. Could “external pressure” alone provide this explanation? On the surface, but only on the surface, the answer is “yes.” “External pressure,” as interpreted by Walt’s “balance of threat” theory, would induce Denmark to balance with NATO in the face of Soviet ambitions. But if we dig a little deeper, problems begin to arise. “Balance of threat” cannot explain the early Danish attempt to pursue the Scandinavian Defense Union. Nor can it explain the differing priorities of the three factions—all of which must be considered “responsible” parties. Therefore, the variables “lessons” as well as “uncertainty” must be included if we are to understand why the Social Democratic adherence to parts of both the “old” and the “new” lessons made the middle solution their obvious choice and why that middle solution had to fail before Denmark could decide on the clear “balancing option” of joining NATO. Focusing on the “lessons of the past” alone also fails to explain the whole picture. Although the “9 April” lesson undoubtedly played a major role as a lens for information processing, the decrease in uncertainty is what revealed that armed neutrality was impossible. Only then did 9 April actually lead to a speciﬁc option. A lens does not make much sense without something to look at.

Acknowledgments

Research for this article was supported by the Danish Council for Indepen- dent Research | Social Sciences and the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). For indispensable comments and advice on earlier drafts, I thank Yuen Foong Khong, Anders Wivel, Hans Mouritzen, Bjørn Møller, An- nika Bergman Rosamond, Andreas Bøje Forsby, Stefano Guzzini, Ulla Holm, Pertti Joenniemi, Bertel Teilfeldt Hansen, Gry Thomasen, Rens Van Mun- ster, Rasmus Hundsbæk Pedersen, Trine Flockhart, Klaus Brummer, Kai Op- permann, Peter Alexander Albrecht, Lori Helene Gronich, Julian Gruin, the JCWS reviewers and editors, and the participants at research group discussions

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and seminars at the University of Oxford, the University of Copenhagen, and DIIS. Older versions of some parts of the text were submitted as part of my Ph.D. dissertation (titled “In the Eye of the Decision-Maker”). I thank the dissertation committee for valuable insights expressed both in the Ph.D.- assessment report and during the defense. I remain solely responsible for the arguments presented here.

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