The paper outlines the foundations of the "Nordic balance" as a Scandinavian neutrality zone in the bi-polar Europe during the Cold War. The co-operation in regional "security community", as perceived by Karl Deutsch shares certain common feelings and practices closely related to the orientation of peaceful change. Such "community" was created as both effective and natural, and this process was not imposed through a formal framework of supranational institutions. However, after the events of 1989-91 the Nordic balance was destroyed while the security community was preserved. These events transformed the North European security situation creating two pillars of "parallel action", one consisting of Denmark, Sweden and Finland, and the other of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

Hans Mouritzen

English

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APRIL - SEPTEMBER 1999 95Enlarging a SecurityCommunity: Competitionthe High North•1nOriginal paperUDC 327(4-17)Hans Mouritzen*The paper outlines the foundations of the "Nordic balance" as a low tension zone in the bi-polar Europe during the Cold War. The co-operation in regional "security community ", asperceived by Karl Deutsch shares certain common feelings and practices closely related to theorientation of peaceful change. Such "community" was created as both effective and natural,and this process was not imposed through a formal framework of supranational institutions.However, after the events of 1989-91 the Nordic balance disappeared while the security com-munity was preserved. These events transformed the North European security situation creat-ing two pillars of "parallel action ", one consisting of Denmark, Sweden and Finland, and theother of Estonia, Latvia, and LithuaniaKW: Nordic balance, bi-polarity, security community1. IntroductionDuring the Cold War, the Nordic countriesformed a low-tension zone in bipolar Europe. Swe-den was a neutral in the middle of the zone, Finlandwas a Soviet-dependent neutral to the East, and Den-mark and Norway were low-profile members ofNATO to the West. The low profile meant, i.a., thatthey did not host foreign bases or nuclear weaponson their mainland territories. The philosophy behindthe so-called 'Nordic balance' was that Soviet powerabstention vis a vis Finland was a prerequisite forthe Danish and Norwegian low profiles in NATO -and vice versa.Moreover, since the beginning of the centurythe Nordic countries have jointly constituted a so-called 'security community'. This concept, as framedby the American political scientist Karl W.Deutsch, means a group of people who have attaineda sense of community, a 'we feeling', and institu-tions and practices strong enough to assure depend-able expectations of peaceful change. This means,in turn, the solution of mutual problems without re-sort to large-scale physical violence'.• Professor; Danish Institute of International Affairs, Copenha-gen.According to Deutsch, transactions such ascommunication, trade and tourism should lead toconvergences in culture and a high degree of inter-dependence, paving the way for a security commu-nity. It may arise without the establishment ofsupranational institutions; the Nordic countries since1907, or the US and Canada since 1870, are men-tioned as examples of such 'pluralistic' security com-munities.This peacefulness, both among the Nordiccountries and as a low-tension area in virtue of theNordic balance, marked a difference to the militarybuild-up in Central Europe during the Cold War andto violent conflicts in other parts of the world. Al-though it was basically due to favourable geopoliti-cal fundamentals, probably, rather than popular trans-actions as such or any inherent peacefulness, thepeaceful state of affairs was good PR for the regionand its countries. The Nordic countries' solid sup-port for the UN as such and contributions to UNpeace-keeping forces in particular served to under-pin this image. Unavoidably, there was occasionallya certain self-righteous flavour to this role as 'worldconscience' .962. Cooperation and CompetitionCROATIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS REVIEWAfter the big European turbulence 1989-91,with the East European revolutions and the dissolu-tion of the Soviet Union, the Nordic security com-munity is still intact, but the Nordic balance is gone.As elsewhere, the power configurations of NorthernEurope have been transformed. Apart from the Rus-sian great power, mostly preoccupied with its inter-nal problems, what has developed in Northern Eu-rope during the post-Cold War era seems to be twopillars of 'parallel action'. The first one consists ofDenmark, Sweden and Finland; the second one ofEstonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In addition, we haveWest-Norden in the form of Norway, Iceland, andthe Faroe Islands. I shall focus here mainly on theformer of the two parallel action pillars, even though,of course, the remaining landscape is a vital prereq-uisite for understanding its dynamics.What is parallel action, then? Parallel actionis carried out by units with the same values, roughlythe same resource base and the same task environ-ment" Denmark, Sweden and Finland share the val-ues of protestant democracy and egalitarianism. Prot-estant democracy refers to century-long diffusionfrom the religious sector to broader societal layers,translating the protestant 'priesthood of all believ-ers' to preferences for non-hierarchical modes ofpolitical organisation, including participatory democ-racy, grass-root influence, etc. Egalitarianism refersto the economic counterpart to this phenomenon,emphasising the reduction of cleavages between richand poor, both domestically and on a global scale.Also, the countries have a roughly similar resourcebase (' small states', to use an unfruitful but acceptedterm). They all share the EU agenda and have BalticSea shores. With the prevailing great power restraint,this latter feature gives them the re-emerged statesof Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as essential taskenvironments and cooperation partners - although notpartners on an equal footing with themselves.This leads to a pattern of parallel action amongDenmark, Sweden, and Finland, meaning both co-operation and competition. Cooperation/mutual in-spiration and competition/jealousy/rivalry in thissense are actually two sides of the same coin. Themore you cooperate, the more you have in common,and therefore the more you can quarrel about. Youcan quarrel about coordination or its absence, whoshould take the honour for this or that initiative, andso on. For every assistance effort there is a creditside, but the more credit to one party, the less to an-other, evidently. But what is the ultimate issue in allthis, then? One issue is, of course, who (if any) shouldbe the informal leader of the so-called 'Baltic searegion' .That is not just a question of which capitalshould be visited by president Clinton or who shouldhost the secretariat of the Council of Baltic SeaStates. It is a question of the popularly underesti-mated, but nonetheless important, commodity ofpolitical prestige - that we are familiar with from agreat power context. Political prestige is a convert-ible currency that is important, since it can be usedas an asset in future situations; 'we can speak withadded weight in various fora'. My point here is justthat this competition is something natural; there isnothing embarrassing about it, as it is sometimesdepicted in Nordic media. Parallel action is whatcould be theoretically expected in view of the threepreconditions mentioned above, also in a securitycommunity.There are nuances, of course. The advantagesof Sweden and Finland in this competition are their'true' Balticness in geographical terms and the realhistorical and mental ties to countries on the oppo-site shores, being largely absent in the Danish case.Denmark's advantage, on the other hand, is its statusas the only Nordic country being both a NATO andan EU member. Finland borders Russia and thismakes for greater caution in high politics, but it alsohas its special relationship with Estonia, geographi-cally and linguistically conditioned. The Finnish rela-tive indifference to Latvia and Lithuania during theEU enlargement process, compared to the posturesof Denmark and Sweden, sustains the view that theDanish and Swedish overall leadership ambitions arestronger than that of Finland. Still, Finland is un-willing to accept someone else's leadership. In roughoutline, it seems that the three countries in questionconstitute a leadership troika regarding regional co-operation and influence on Estonia, whereas Den-mark and Sweden form a corresponding duo in rela-tion to Latvia and a troika together with Poland inrelation to Lithuania.What about Norway, then? Norway sharesvalues with those in the parallel action pillar, hasapproximately the same resource base, but a differ-ent task environment. Bordering Russia to the 'Northof the North', the Barents cooperation is more im-portant for Norway than the distant Baltic countries;specific interests like oil, fish and nuclear waste areat stake (of course, Norway displays a certain inter-est in the Baltic Sea cooperation in return for othersdoing the same regarding Barents, but that is mar-ginal after all). In the Cold War setting, DenmarkAPRIL - SEPTEMBER 1999 97and Norway performed parallel action within NATO,because they were both frontline states and couldtherefore support each other in giving credibility tothe same low profile. Denmark, having got rid ofsuch concerns from 1988-89, and Norway, beingmoreover outside the EU, whose agenda is commonto the parallel action states, Norway is indeed theodd man out in political terms, together with Iceland(not performing any less successfully for that rea-son, one should add).One can argue, of course, whether to label theparallel action pillar 'Nordic'. Firstly, however, thatwould be an insult to Norway and Iceland. Secondly,'Nordic' gives it a flavour of romanticism that is quiteout of tune with realities. As the parallel action pil-lar functions, it is very much the national interestsof Denmark, the national interests of Sweden, andthe national interests of Finland that are being pur-sued in mutual cooperation and competition. Thereis much more high politics in the relations betweenthese countries today than ever since at least 19493.With the three countries all being EU mem-bers and sharing the Nordic values and task environ-ment described above, the 'North-EU' pillar is prob-ably the most precise label.3. Enlarginga Security Community?It has been suggested to incorporate the Baltsin the established Nordic cooperation machinery, theNordic Council and Nordic Council of Ministers.Still, adding 5+3 to become 8 does not change thereal political picture in the North, which is one of3+3, the two pillars of parallel action. An institu-tional amendment of this type cannot change geopo-litical fundamentals, and hardly even modify theirimplications. However, in addition to improving thevirtues of the 3+3 structure in itself, the North- EUpillar can support the Baltic one on its way into theEU. In particular Denmark and Sweden are willingto make that effort on a comprehensive basis. Cur-rently, the EU with its 'soft security' is what seemsrealistic (and sufficient) for the Balts, given the re-served attitudes among larger NATO-countries re-garding enlargement and given progress in Russiandisarmament. The long-term ambition that Denmark,Sweden and Finland seem to nurture is to transformthe Baltic Sea region in its entirety into a securitycommunity. This must, by necessity, involve Russiain the process. If and when the Baltic countries havegained EU membership, a necessary - though hardlysufficient - prerequisite for such a community to beestablished is a stable and interdependent EU-Rus-sia relationship.Evidently, the Nordic countries, includingDenmark, Sweden and Finland, do still constitute asecurity community among themselves. But even asecurity community may have its political rivalries.However, being a security community is no longer aNordic privilege in the Europe of stable EC/EU in-tegration. Also, the three countries have now includedan area in their task environment that is in no way asecurity community, i.e. the Baltic eastern shore.Even though Denmark, Sweden and Finland haverenounced sole responsibility for the Balts' security,referring it to the EU or NATO as a whole, they haveput their prestige at risk on the consolidation andprosperity of the Baltic states and, in a long-termperspective, probably an enlargement of their ownsecurity community to the eastern shore of the Bal-tic Sea. Apart from the inherent risk, it entails op-portunity as well.Should they be successful in their endeavour,this might actually be as much of a PR triumph asthe 'world conscience' role during the Cold War, andenhance the countries' own regional prestige. Itamounts, if successful, to the 'exporting' of secu-rity beyond their own area, not only displayingofthe area's own peacefulness to the world aroundas during the Cold War.Admittedly, the countries also tried to exportsecurity during the Cold War through UN peace-keeping forces. However, much less prestige wasinvolved in those faraway operations that were (andare) in fact a kind of foreign aid by other means. Inthe Baltic neighbourhood, by contrast, geopolitical,geoeconomic and ideological self-interest is muchmore obvious and specific. High politics is at stakefor each of the three countries.NOTES•My analysis is not necessarily representing the view of DUPI,the Danish Institute of International Affairs, and even lessany official Danish view. It is based solely on my own analy-sis as an independent researcher.1 Karl W. Deutsch, Political Community and the North AtlanticArea, Princeton University Press, 1957.2 The term was coined by the Danish-Californian researcherGunnar Nielsson, although it is defined and applied differentlyhere.3 Clive Archer and the present author have dealt with this in amore nuanced way in Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook 1997than space allows here.

Enlarging a security community: cooperation in the high north

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