Berkley Center

The Second Schleswig War of 1864 was the last time Denmark entered in to a conflict involving large-scale combat. The results of their crushing defeat at the hands of the Germans were twofold. It established the nation's modern borders and caused the native population to realize that Denmark’s future survival would be dictated by its citizens' ability to turn outward losses to inward gains. Denmark’s modern foreign policy agenda has been dictated by pacifism and disarmament for the better part of one and a half centuries. For the duration of World War II the nation lived under strict occupation, with German forces meeting little resistance. While some have criticized Danish leadership for this, they were well aware how crushing a defeat their minuscule armed forces would have suffered and thus chose the more pragmatically sound option for their citizenry. This relatively passive occupation resulted in a significantly lower mortality rate than other European nations endured, with only about 7,000 Danes losing their lives at the hands of Nazi soldiers.

In recent years, however, Denmark has received heightened levels of attention from abroad as a result of two independent events and their mutual relationship to the war on terror. The year 2005 saw the outbreak of the Muhammad cartoon crisis spark international debate on subjects ranging from freedom of speech to the Arab spring, and late last year a 60 Minutes piece helped break the controversy-filled story surrounding Denmark’s alleged involvement in the drone strike that killed American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. This was the first time since the Civil War ended that the United States armed forces carried out a deliberate killing of an American citizen.

Just days after notification of my acceptance to study abroad in Denmark I was perched on my couch half watching 60 Minutes half browsing the web. When the story about al-Awlaki began and I heard the words Copenhagen and Denmark I closed the lid to my laptop and started paying close attention. The piece detailed how a Danish man named Morten Storm claimed to have played a leading role in providing the intelligence to the CIA which ultimately lead to a drone strike killing the terrorist leader in a remote area within the Yemeni desert. Storm had previously been a radicalized Muslim convert interested in establishing ties to al-Awlaki. By the time his extreme change of faith occurred where he no longer wanted to partake in radical Islam, he found himself as a well-respected jihadist with close ties to al-Awlaki. Recognizing his strategic position, he reached out to Danish intelligence officials and began his transformation into a double agent.

Storm has publicly recognized the dangers he has subjected himself to by revealing the story, and al-Awlaki’s followers have since vowed to seek revenge on him. In spite of threats, he still persists in his efforts to receive formal recognition from the CIA and Danish intelligence. Both bodies continue to deny his involvement to this day.

I strolled down a wet narrow street in Copenhagen and arrived at my philosophy class where the topic for the day was to be Baruch Spinoza’s writings on censorship and freedom of speech. What ensued was an intense debate amongst my peers centered on the Muhammad cartoon crisis and how restrictions of speech play a role in radicalizing individuals. My professor, Jesper Lohmann, guided the discussion with grace and helped curtail knee-jerk emotional responses aiding students to take an academic approach through the lens of Spinoza’s work. It was clear he was extremely well read on the subject and at the conclusion of class I approached him and inquired about his knowledge on the Morten Storm topic. We spoke continuously for almost 30 minutes.

During the conversation I commented on how counter to the traditional Danish foreign policy agenda Storm’s outcry for recognition appeared. To this point Jesper suggested I also take into consideration the level of contradiction surrounding Storm’s decision if also viewed through the Danish cultural phenomenon of the Jante Law. The concept was created by the Dano-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose in 1933, and this “law” categorizes individual success, achievement, and recognition as inappropriate and in extremely bad taste. It is a cultural norm that still exists to a certain degree in Scandinavia today. At the conclusion of our conversation Jesper invited me to come and sit in on his counter-terrorism class where a Danish intelligence representative would be guest lecturing in two days' time.

Following this conversation I practically sprinted to the nearest café, got myself a large extremely overpriced coffee (that’s Copenhagen for you), and began scouring the web for any bits of information relating to drone strikes, Storm, and al-Awlaki I could get my hands on. The class I was invited to sit in on was only two days away, and I wanted to be as well prepared as possible for the opportunity to be face-to-face with the intelligence agent.

When the day arrived I entered the classroom with a Word document practically bursting at the seams with notes on the subject. Being that I was a guest in the class I took care to allow others to warm up the floor before nervously raising my hand. When finally called upon I said something to the effect of, “What are your thoughts on Morten Storm’s actions?” He responded stone-faced, “I have nothing to say about the subject,” and gracefully moved on to the next eager hand waiting to be pointed to. This response both knocked the wind out of my chest and incited a desire to return to the cafe with my computer immediately. It was clear that the topic of Morten Storm was to be completely white-washed by all intelligence officials privy to information on the subject.

I stumbled upon a New York Times article by Mark Mazzetti, Charlie Savage, and Scott Shane titled "How a US Citizen Came to be in America’s Cross Hairs." It gave a detailed account of how the drone strike was carried out. In this article one line in particular resonated deeply with me, “[This] highlights the perils of a war conducted behind a classified veil, relying on missile strikes rarely acknowledged by the American government and complex legal justifications drafted for only a small group of officials to read.” The covert nature of the missile strike, the cold response from the Danish intelligence official, and the complex legal ramifications through which such killings are justified continued to spark my curiosity and encouraged further reading in the ensuing weeks.

Being in Denmark for six months provided me with a thorough understanding of the way phenomena such as the Second Schleswig War, the Jante Law, and World War II have come to affect modern procedures of diplomacy and conflict avoidance. Storm’s story stood in such contradiction to what I had come to learn through my classes and experiences in Copenhagen that anything other than seeking answers through my own research was not an option. It was my new ability to analyze Storm’s story through the lens of a deep understanding of his own culture that sparked an interest to take a closer look at the types of force our nation uses to ensure "safety."

Spending time in another culture undeniably opens your eyes to issues and allows you to approach the world around you from unexplored angles. In this particular case my time in Denmark sparked an interest in a type of international affairs I had never examined on a level deeper than reading the headlines of mainstream media. I want to stress that this article is not meant to spark debate on the issues of terrorism or drone use, but instead to be a reflection on the means by which intellectual curiosity relating to one’s own nation can be ignited by experiences occurring in a foreign land.