After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Denmark needed to completely shift its security paradigm. Before the invasion, the Danish defence budget amounted to 1.1 per cent of its GDP. It was only in 2023 when the main political parties agreed to reach a minimum target value of two per cent by 2030.
On March 6th 2022, two weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine had begun, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced a referendum on lifting the opt-out on Denmark’s participation in EU defence cooperation. The vote, held on June 1st, marked the end of one the four opt-outs that Copenhagen negotiated to convince their citizens to accept the Maastricht Treaty. Although few suspected more far-reaching steps would follow, Donald Trump’s comeback has led to deepening the understanding that Denmark is a small nation in need of strong collective defence capabilities. This realisation has been emerging for almost 400 years.
Up until the mid-17th century, Denmark was a major power in the Baltic Sea. Ever since, however, it has seen its territory and influence shrink. The realm could not withstand the growing influence of Sweden and lost the region of Scandia to it in 1658. In the early 1800s the United Kingdom punished Denmark for supporting Napoleon. The British bombarded Copenhagen, causing large-scale fires, and gave control over Norway to Sweden. Half a century later, Prussia provoked and won the Second Schleswig War of 1863-64. Berlin, eager to project its power and unite the German states under Hohenzollern rule, took away Denmark’s most populated and economically developed provinces in the south of the Jutland Peninsula. Only the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland remained of a once vast empire.
Following the Schleswig disaster, the Danish elite realized that the country had become a small nation-state. The nation’s identity has since been inward-looking, based on a strong sense of community, consensus-building and trust enhanced by language and culture. In terms of foreign policy, Denmark adopted a restrained approach. It remained neutral throughout the First World War and rejected the offer to fully regain the territories captured by Germany, only accepting their northern part inhabited predominantly by a Danish-speaking population.
Invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940, Denmark showed no military resistance, adopting a wait-and-see approach under the relatively restrained occupation regime. It was during the Second World War when Denmark’s strong pro-US stance began to form, although initially this was plagued by controversies. Henrik Kauffmann, the ambassador to the US, went rogue and on April 9th 1941, authorized the US army to build bases on Greenland without the consent of his government. Initially declared a traitor, he was proven right in the grand scheme of things. The treaty he signed laid the foundations for a strong conviction that only the United States could provide security for Denmark and its territories. Kauffmann’s legacy, famously depicted in the movie The Good Traitor, is still in place as the 1941 treaty remains the basis for the Pituffik Space Base (formerly known as the Thule Air Base) in northwest Greenland.
The belief in transatlantic ties was so strong that Denmark was among the founding members of NATO in 1949 whereas it waited until 1973 to join the European Communities. When it came to building Western Europe’s autonomous defence capabilities, however, Danes were univocally reluctant even after the collapse of the communist bloc. This was demonstrated emphatically during the discussions concerning the Maastricht Treaty and the subsequent EU defence cooperation opt-out clause Copenhagen negotiated.
The result of the 2022 referendum – with 67 per cent of voters in favour of abolishing the opt-out – marked a shift in this approach. Still, the Danish government made it clear that EU-backed defence initiatives would not hinder but complement the security umbrella provided by NATO. The nation was not willing to give up its focus on the Alliance. Comments made back in 2019 by Donald Trump about the US buying Greenland were viewed merely as a short-lived aberration.
Indeed, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Denmark needed to completely shift its security paradigm. After the end of the Cold War the country found itself in the middle of Fukuyama’s “End of History” illusion and still relied on the light of freedom beaming from across the Atlantic. When the September 11th attacks against the US took place in 2001, Copenhagen was among those Western European capitals that participated in the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Danish military began building its expeditionary capabilities, neglecting territorial defence and largely overlooking the changing security dynamic in the Baltic Sea. Denmark’s easternmost island of Bornholm, just 300 kilometres from the shores of Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast, was only defended by semi-professional Home Guard soldiers, amounting to a mere 200 people. When Russia invaded Crimea and Donbas, the Danish defence budget amounted to 1.1 per cent of its GDP. It was only in 2023 when the main political parties agreed to reach a minimum target value of two per cent by 2030.
It seems that the recent statements by President Trump about Greenland provided another push towards new security thinking. On February 22nd 2025 all of the country’s main political parties agreed to increase funds allocated for defence to three per cent already by this year and next. While the government explicitly mentioned the growing threat from Russia as the main reason for such a move, it also demonstrated Denmark’s commitment to collective defence within NATO and sought to disarm the arguments used by Trump and his accolades. In May the Danish defence ministry announced it would deploy an additional army regiment to Bornholm, adding at least 500 more troops to the island which is inhabited by 40,000 people.
Does all this mean that Denmark is now among the pioneers of Europe’s autonomous defence capabilities and that its reliance on the US is wavering? The country has come a long way from being a strong proponent of only NATO and Nordic defence cooperation to continent-wide initiatives. For now, they still only complement the decades-long NATO commitments. They have, however, the potential to bring Denmark closer its European partners and allies. With Finland and Sweden manifesting a similar attitude, Germany finally upping its commitments and Poland being at the forefront of deterring Russia by reforming its military, chances are that the gradual reconfiguration of the Baltic and European security landscape will have far-reaching consequences.
The views and opinions in this text do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.