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by Maxwell Orme Johnson
Which NATO member nation’s military forces
of battalion size or larger have participated in
UN and/or NATO peacekeeping operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Kosovo, Macedonia, and Afghanistan? If you answered
the United States and Great Britain, you would be
only partially correct. If you included Cyprus,
the Congo, Kashmir, Eritrea, the Gaza Strip, Kuwait,
and Namibia, there is only one: Denmark.
During the height of the fighting around the cave
complexes in Tora Bora in Afghanistan, Danish special
ops units hunted for and battled Al Qaeda forces,
alongside U.S. special ops units and the British
SAS. Earlier this year, Denmark had the largest
force in Afghanistan relative to the population
of the country. Today, Denmark has a C-130 Hercules
and an F-16 squadron based in Kyrgyzstan in support
of UN operations in Afghanistan.
Danish peacekeeping/peace
enforcement in 2002.
Individual Danish soldiers are also serving in
UN observer missions in Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Kashmir,
and the Congo. The Danes’ role as peacekeepers/
peace enforcers has an interesting historical heritage.
In the early 19th century, when the U.S. Navy was
patrolling the Mediterranean waters off the coast
of North Africa, trying to bring an end to the threat
from the so-called Barbary Coast Pirates, the Danish
Navy fought alongside the U.S. Navy. Today, in almost
the same location, a Danish Navy submarine is on
patrol with U.S. Navy ships, freeing a USN submarine
for duty in and near the Persian Gulf.
In cooperation with other countries, Denmark maintains
a special UN standby force available for immediate
deployment in peace enforcing missions anywhere
in the world. Admiral Tim Sloth Jorgensens, the
deputy chief of the Danish Armed Forces, draws a
clear distinction between peacekeeping operations
and peace enforcing operations, stating that, as
a result of hard lessons learned in the Balkans
in the 1990s, rules of engagement have been clarified,
which now allow Danish (and other) peacekeeping
forces to act in a proactive manner with what he
calls “sharp” tactics.
The admiral explains further that Denmark contributes
forces from all three services to the UN on a regular
basis, as well as a headquarters unit from the Danish
Reaction Brigade to the UN Standby Arrangements
System.
A prerequisite for the substantial Danish contribution
to international operations is the high percentage
of fully combat-trained conscripts that continue
as professional soldiers. The Danish model is a
professional defense structure, with its organization
based initially on conscription.
The Danish Reaction Brigade (DRB) has its core
in a traditional brigade structure, but to allow
for additional flexibility and capability to act
in an independent role, additional logistic support
elements have been added. As presently organized,
the DRB consists of a tank battalion, a field artillery
battalion, two armored (mechanized) infantry regiments,
an armored engineer company, a light (cavalry) reconnaissance
squadron, an air defense missile battery, a service
support battalion, a logistics support battalion
and a military police detachment -- in all over
4,500 troops, a force to be reckoned with.
Because the Danish Armed Forces have become the
model of how peacekeeping / peace enforcing units
should be organized, trained and equipped, Denmark’s
training center for its peacekeeping forces in Oksbol
in Jutland has recently become the Peacekeeping
School for all UN and NATO units preparing to deploy
on global missions. The Danish Armed Forces have
published the handbook to govern this training.
By all accounts, foreign units going through the
various courses graduate fully prepared for global
peacekeeping/peace enforcing operations.
As part of Vision 2010, the Danish Armed Forces
will continue to develop their expertise through
training and actual employment in international
peacekeeping operations. They are clearly masters
of the art, and the world is a more peaceful place
due to their contributions.
For more information: www.fko.dk
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