NATO charter member Denmark has been a sycophantic ally of the United States for most of the years following the founding of the Western military alliance in 1949. Until 1949, many Danes favored the creation of a neutralist military bloc of Nordic nations that would steer clear of American and Soviet military alliances. This attitude by the Danes irked Washington. A recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency document titled Neutrality and Third Force Tendencies in Western Europe and dated December 19, 1950, bemoaned the presence of neutralists in Denmark . . .
The CIA document states: “In Denmark Social Democratic leaders have often expressed their regret that a neutral Scandinavian alliance did not materialize, and minor elements within the party, as well as the Radical Liberals, generally still harbor neutralist feeling.”
In the 1960s, Denmark’s Social Democratic-led governments actually voiced opposition to the disastrous U.S. war in Indochina and provided sanctuary to a number of active duty U.S. military personnel stationed in Europe who sought asylum in Denmark. Danish governments accentuated an independent foreign policy, free of dictates from Washington. While remaining friendly to Washington, sixties-era Social Democratic Prime Minister Jens Otto Krag and his more left-wing successor, Anker Jorgensen, irritated Washington by not only welcoming AWOL U.S. troops evading service in South Vietnam but also by banning from Danish ports U.S. naval vessels carrying nuclear weapons.
In the early 1980s, Jorgensen also dragged his feet on financial and political support for President Ronald Reagan’s plan to deploy MX mobile, Pershing II, and cruise missiles to Western Europe. Denmark was considered a less than reliable ally of the United States under truly left-of-center progressive Social Democratic prime ministers like Krag and Jorgensen.
However, under succeeding Conservative-led governments, as well as a series of pro-corporate Social Democratic “Third Way” governments, Denmark has become an obedient champion of America’s neoconservative foreign policy. Jorgensen would be the last Danish prime minister to stand up to Washington.
His conservative successors, including Poul Schluter, the “Third Way” corporatist Social Democrat Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, and the one of the most pro-American leaders in Western Europe, Conservative Anders Fogh Rasmussen [no relation to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen].
Fogh Rasmussen was one of President George W. Bush’s primary cheerleaders for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the deployment of NATO ground troops into a quagmire in Afghanistan. Rasmussen’s reputation as a lickspittle and popinjay for Washington earned him the job as Secretary General of NATO, a position he has used to stoke Cold War-style tensions from the Baltic States and Finland to Ukraine, the Balkans, and Georgia. Rasmussen’s fealty to Washington has earned him the total support of the United States, particularly the neoconservatives. A number of neoconservative publications, including those owned by Rupert Murdoch, have referred to Rasmussen as the “dashing Dane” who should succeed Jose Manuel Barosso as the President of the European Commission.
Denmark’s current prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, although a Social Democrat, fits into the mold of a pro-European, pro-corporate “Third Way” apologist for America. Thorning-Schmidt grew up in a conservative family and is a veteran of the European Parliament, where she honed her globalist views. Thorning-Schmidt’s support for selling Denmark’s shares in the DONG Energy electricity utility caused her left-wing coalition allies, the Socialist People’s Party, to abandon her government in January 2014.
Thorning-Schmidt is married to Stephen Kinnock, the son of former British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who, after leaving the helm of the Labor Party, became a European Union commissioner. Thorning-Schmidt’s mother-in-law, Glenys Kinnock, is a former British Minister for Europe. The Danish prime minister’s globalist ties do not end with her in-laws. Her husband Stephen is a director for the elitist World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Thorning-Schmidt’s actions at the funeral of former South African president Nelson Mandela earned her severe criticism in a number of quarters. Thorning-Schmidt used her smart phone to pose for “selfie” photographs with President Barack Obama and British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. Thorning-Schmidt’s teenager-like fawning over the American president appeared to mirror her government’s lavish support for America’s political agenda, from Ukraine and the Balkans to increasing Pentagon control over Danish-held Greenland and the expansion of NATO to the East.
Some years ago, West German officers assigned to NATO headquarters in Brussels, complained that a number of Danish military officers held views the Germans considered to be “Nazi-like.” It is clear that the CIA and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) have, over the years, ensured the rapid promotion of right-wing Danes in supranational organizations like NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union. These Danes have been available to support U.S. policy at the beck-and-call of Washington. The leak of U.S. State Department cables provided the names of other Danish officials who, like Fogh Rasmussen, have acted as American “poodles.”
Leaked cables from 2007 pinpoint the head of the Department for Eastern European the Danish Foreign Ministry, Ruben Madsen, as one reliable agent for U.S. interests. Madsen told U.S. officials: “There is ‘no doubt’ that Denmark will be among the first EU member states to recognize the independence of Kosovo.” Madsen also indicated that he was working to curb opposition to Kosovo independence by the Dutch and “Cypriot-Russian” collusion. Madsen opined that Cyprus could not hold out indefinitely from the efforts of the pro-Kosovo forces in the EU.
Madsen also reported on his efforts to isolate Russia over the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008. Madsen proudly told his U.S. embassy interlocutors that his government believed that Russian actions were the “price we are paying for not extending MAP [NATO Membership Action Plan] to Georgia.” Madsen also told his U.S. embassy contacts that he was frustrated with Macedonia’s reluctance to compromise on the “name issue” with Greece. The Greeks oppose Macedonia using the name “Macedonia” for the former republic of Yugoslavia.
In 2011, Madsen was moved up in the ranks and appointed Danish ambassador to Turkey. Madsen championed Denmark’s actions in 2009 to curtail the activities of Copenhagen-based Kurdish-language Roj-TV because of charges the network was linked to the alleged terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It was later discovered that the U.S. pressured Rasmussen to close Roj TV, not because of links to terrorism, but to secure Turkey’s support for Fogh Rasmussen to become NATO Secretary General. NATO, including Turkey, approved Rasmussen to be the NATO Secretary General in 2009 after Denmark’s assault on Roj-TV. It appears that Madsen was sent to Turkey to protect Fogh Rasmussen’s interests in Turkey. Madsen presented his credential in Ankara on October 5, 2011, two days after Thorning-Schmidt became Danish Prime Minister. Madsen was also conveniently in Ankara to help handle the fallout arising from the 2010 attack by his Israeli friends on the Turkish Mavi Marmara Gaza aid flotilla.
The pro-U.S. machinations between Fogh Rasmussen, Thorning-Schmidt, and permanent foreign ministry bureaucrats like Madsen point to the fact that Denmark no longer has any semblance of a foreign policy independent from that of the United States.
The rise of the pro-American elite in Copenhagen has coincided with the rise of the global security firm G4S. The firm has provided security services for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has been charged with enabling Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners through its contract with the Israeli Prison Service. Thorning-Schmidt has made no move to investigate or curtail the activities of the firm.
This writer’s Danish grandmother, Victoria Madsen, a veteran of Danish resistance to the Nazi occupation and a proud member of the Danish Communist Party and journalist for the Danish Communist newspaper Land og Folk, would hardly recognize today’s Denmark. As one elderly Danish Communist activist once pointed out to this writer while standing outside the Danish Folketing (Parliament), “Every one of those chauffeured vehicles driving into the Folketing belongs to either a conservative or social democrat.” There is truly something rotten in the state of Denmark and it is not merely the conservatives but also the social democrats, who are neither socialist nor democratic.
This article originally appeared in Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
The strange thing is, that you should expect it to be easier for Denmark to have an independent foreign policy after the Cold War has ended. Some people might say, that during the period of Cold War, the situation forced us to choose side, and accept the consequence: US dominance.
But this is not the situation today. The total obedience to USA is a free choice. I guess the motive is, that it will somehow benefit Denmark economically. As a Dane I think it is not only irresponsible, but also embarrassing.