Looking beyond Great Power Prestige: How Small States Pursue National Ends in Theater-Specific Military Deployments

Small states are widely held to use military power as a prestige-seeking strategy with the aim of furthering security and influence in great power relations. Contemporary research thus focuses on overall security interests rather than theater-specific ends, ways, and means when analyzing the military deployments made by such states. Alongside prestige, however, small states actively pursue diverse national ends in idiosyncratic ways through the application of a variety of military means; each implements a unique strategy, from political aim to deployment. These states do this by linking theater-specific military objectives with a set of well-defined operational frameworks and available military capabilities. But lacking power and resources, aligning all elements of strategy is not routinely achievable; the national political aims of the deployment thus relate to a single theater-specific element within the deployment. Consequently, military deployments made by small states create a decisive and critical link from the political aim to either the theater-specific objectives the frameworks or the capabilities employed. Analyzing Danish deployments to the Horn of Africa, Helmand, and Libya at the theater-specific level, the article offers examples of the manner in which such strategic links arose from different political aims in the pursuit of the nation’s goals. Three analytical models for analyzing military deployments are suggested; when compared to existing research literature they can more successfully illuminate how small states use military power for political aims beyond great power prestige.