Danish Defense Transformation and the Technopolitics of Relevant Military Contributions

This article shows how the transformation of the Danish Defence, initiated with the defense agreement of 2004, was impacted by socio-technological change. The article takes as its theoretical starting point the concepts of security and military imaginaries and the study of (military) technopolitics. It argues that the Danish military transformation was a product of the Danish foreign policy ambition of being viewed as a trustworthy and relevant ally – especially by the United States. This ambition meant that Denmark had to make relevant military contributions to the period’s U.S.- and NATO-led international operations. Therefore, the perception of what constituted relevant military contributions came to shape the Danish military transformation. In this process the period’s large-scale socio-technological changes, fueled by unprecedented information and communication technological development, played a central role in (re-)shaping both U.S. and Danish security and military imaginaries. This through technopolitical narratives of the information age, (the dark sides of) globalization, and the Revolution in Military Affairs which (in)directly impacted the broader Danish understanding and concrete practice (i.e. policy) in regard to military transformation in connection with the 2004 defense agreement. Finally, for Denmark, the technopolitical conflicts emerging around the schism of having to transform in order to be viewed as a trustworthy ally capable of making relevant military contributions and the large-scale economic and organizational investments required by the transformation led Denmark to formulate its own technopolitical strategy or narrative. This in the shape of Network-Based Operations framed as a specific Danish pragmatic and down-to-earth approach to transformation.