[This article is part of a six-part series providing an overview of the world’s happiest people living in five Scandinavian countries’ love affair with US-ARMEs wars (United States of America Racist Military Empire). I focus on the current proxy war in Ukraine with their aim of “taking out” Russia. U.S./NATO’s war is an existential threat to, first, Russia, and beyond to China and the Global South. The hope is to undermine the growing BRICS economic advances through cooperation. This is real competition for sharing the world’s wealth more equitably—a death threat to Western “pure” capitalist “market” economic domination. I concentrate on Denmark since I have lived there for 35 years.]
The Russians are Coming
On a rare, warm summer day without rain and roaring wind, my love (Jette) and I took a walk over a green field alongside a promontory of Køge Bay in southeast Denmark. Another nature lover came by as we heard a lark signaling high above its nest.
“Our larks are protecting us from the Russians,” the middle-aged woman giggled.
I had hoped this leisurely walk would spare me reminders of the wars being waged by greedy-sick-profiteering-narcissistic Western societies. Not to be. I couldn’t stop myself from shouting how many hundreds of wars and thousands of military “interventions” for “democracy” the Yankees have engaged in during its two-and-a-half centuries.
She scurried away as I roared on about happy Danes enthusiastically supporting the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Russia.
Denmark’s major media proudly announced the same day that its country—alongside with its American mentor—is the first to send machinery/technology to “democratic” Ukraine so they can make their own weapons to kill Russians. The Social Democrat Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has yet another measurement for being one of the world’s greatest per-capita donors to the neo-fascist Ukrainian war.
I had been procrastinating for months since I last wrote about this war, as it approaches world war. At the same time Israeli Zionists are committing genocide against the Palestinian people, which is leading to another major war in the Middle East.
I felt, as I tell anyone who does not want to listen, that, if we don’t do something to oppose these wars-for-profit-and-domination, then we are guilty too. All I can do at this stage with waning health, and living where no one visibly supports Russia’s sovereignty, is to write for publication. So, I decided that I must offer my mental health to put something on paper.
Today (September 7), I was to start writing after breakfast. As I washed dishes my head swirled with the lead. Pictures of war headlines stacked in a row on my long writing desk appeared: The government announced increased militarization; The Americans intake Arhus Harbor: at dawn they rolled out with military vehicles; Danes must take care of themselves for three days in crises [related to if the Russians invade]; Europe can achieve peace if we realize that war never goes away.
Dizzy, I fell. Vomit rose to my throat. Jette helped me to the toilet. “You can’t endure this world.”
Happiest People in the World
Finland took top honors for the tenth year straight. Its 2024 overall score is 7.741, followed in order by Denmark (7.583), Iceland (7.525), Sweden (7.344), Israel (7.341), Netherlands (7.319), Norway (7.302).
The World Population Review (WPR) has been conducting this survey measuring human happiness since 2002. Denmark sometimes has been number one and all five Scandinavian countries consistently make the top ten. The world’s greatest warring countries at this moment: Israel=5; UK=20; U.S.=23; Russia=72; Ukraine=105.
It doesn’t bother Israelis’ happiness as they murder Palestinians. Of the 143 countries surveyed Afghanistan hits bottom after 20 years of invasion-occupation by the Yankees. WPR measures happiness using six criteria: GDP per capita/standards of living, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.
When former independent politician Bernie Sanders ran for the presidency on the Democratic Party ticket, he proudly adopted the nomenclature “democratic socialist,” and he pointed to Denmark as a model for his vision of an ideal American future.
“I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway,” Sanders said in 2016, “and learn what they have accomplished for their working people.”
So Why Are Danes So Eager for War?
My fifth article will focus on Scandinavia’s gigantic funding of the war in multi-billions of cash and weaponry. Here is a taste. One encounters myriad figures when searching for costs and war weaponry sent to Ukraine; nevertheless, Denmark, Norway and Sweden always figure in the top ten. Denmark’s population of 5.93 million and Norway’s 5.57 million contribute without any visible protest either the most per capita or within the top three countries among the U.S.’s new “coalition of the willing.” Finland comes in between 10 and 15 out of 42 countries tallied.
Here are the ten biggest providers of military aid to Ukraine, with the Scandinavian countries in bold, as of April 2024.
How can it be explained that, in the current European war, happy Scandinavians are among the most hawkish? Unfortunately, the WPR survey does not ask that pertinent question. I offer suggestions about Denmark from some influencers and from my experience.
“I would like to make one thing clear,” Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen—leader of the “Liberal” Party—said in response to Sanders in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government: “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Løkke Rasmussen is now the Moderate Party leader, and current foreign minister in the three-party cabinet led by Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen.
Vibeke Schou Tjalve, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told the liberal daily Politiken why Denmark sent four F-16 war jets and 300 mercenary troops to the Baltic States and Poland as back-up to the U.S.’s invasion-occupation of Iraq, in 2014.
Schou Tjalve stated: “We [Danes] perceive it as natural that once again we are on the way to war, part of our every day. People believe that if the U.S. says it is wise, so it is wise for us to be with them—we have broken our hymen….Denmark is at war to please America.”
This is what Danes have told me about their complacent complicity over the decades:
- We had to do what the U.S. wanted of us so we could come in out of the cold, and get Marshall Plan benefits after World War II. The Danish Social Democrat government passively accepted Nazi Germany’s five-year occupation. Only because there was an underground militant resistance, led by communists, did the U.S. consider Denmark worthy enough.
- Danes profited from colonialism/slavery. Much of Denmark’s wealth has come from being oppressors. Danes don’t want to confront that past, clearly seen on many monuments/statues/street names. Greenland is still a colony.
- Danes see themselves as just a “little land” needing “security” from a big land.
- Danish culture is passive, authoritarian faithful, conflict-averse and indifferent.
- Profiteering from the weapons industry and wars is always one answer, usually the main one. Nevertheless, with the exception of a handful of capitalists (A.P. Moeller Maersk, Terma), income from weapons and war had been negligible in Denmark. Before the U.S.-assisted sabotage actions in New York and elsewhere on September 11, 2001, Denmark had only a handful of such firms. Now there are around 500. Terma even supplies materials for the F-35A, of which Denmark bought 27 for $2.4 billion in 2016. At that time, 53% of Danes polled were opposed to the purchase while 31% supported it. That mood is now totally reversed.
Christian Daily wrote a thorough review of Rasmus Mariager’s relevant book: The Soul Battle That Made Us Americans. The Danish historian shows how Danes adapted to all things American during the Cold War, from music, sports, language, and tourist traveling to rearmament against the Soviet Union.
Modern-day Russia was the big bad bear even before this war. Nineteen thousand new buildings related to NATO and its many wars were built before 1991, including underground tunnels for political and economic leaders.
What most people in the world don’t know about Denmark is that it has been serving U.S. invasionary wars for more than three decades. Denmark, along with its former colony Iceland, and Norway, were among the first dozen countries to start NATO, in 1949.
Finland had been neutral since World War II but joined in April 2023 to fight Russians through the proxy war in Ukraine. Sweden dropped its neutrality since 1812, and was accepted in March 2024, after initial objections from Turkey and Hungary.
Denmark’s earliest involvement was to send a war ship to support the U.S.’s invasion in Iraq in 1991. The world’s largest shipping owner, AP Moeller Maersk, then sent dozens of his ships to transport half-a-million U.S. troops and armaments gratis. This subsequently brought him huge profits. One of his shipping lines has 56 ships based in Virginia (2021). Twenty-two of them are used directly by the U.S. for military operations. He also ships weapons to Israel and Ukraine.
Denmark continued its war alliance by sending troops, war jets, and other weaponry to break Yugoslavia into five countries. Some would obediently join NATO. Denmark followed up in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, even to some countries in Africa where civil wars occur, because the U.S. and Europe control or seek to control their natural resources.
Denmark sided with U.S-ARME against the UN, France and Germany and invaded Iraq in 2003. It provides war materials, pilots and troops from time to time during the U.S.’s permanent occupation.
Thirty thousand troops and volunteer mercenaries were sent many times to war between 1990 and 2017 (and running) as an aggressor in half-a-dozen countries, either as part of NATO or part of the “coalition of the willing.”
Danes killed: 64; 300 wounded; 47 suicides in 300 attempts between 1992 and 2013 (and running). No figures are available as to how many human beings Denmark has murdered!
1. Balkans=33,691 Danes invaders; 12 Danes killed; 35 wounded (1992-today).
2. Afghanistan=20,000 Danes; 43 killed; 214 wounded (2002-today).
3. Iraq=9,605 troops; 8 killed; 19 wounded (2003-2007).
4. Libya=629 pilots+, none killed or wounded (2011).
5. Lebanon=1,551; one killed; none wounded.
6. Gulf of Aden=3,149 sailors/military; none killed or wounded.
7. Syria=738 air force and special forces; none killed or wounded.
During Mette Frederiksen’s first one-party Social Democrat government (June 2019-December 2022), President Donald Trump had scheduled a trip, but when Frederiksen rejected his ridiculous offer to buy Greenland, he declined the invitation. She met him in London during a NATO meeting, December 2019. She told the media: “I have a good and positive impression of the president…We can count on one another and we can trust one another.” “We swing well together.”
To prove how well she swings with her big partner, Frederiksen increased Denmark’s military support over what she had offered just two months before. This support included:
- More military focus and money in Greenland’s Arctic area for “national security.”
- Double Denmark’s aircraft for NATO from four to eight in honor of its 70th birthday.
Key features of Denmark’s military might for its six million inhabitants include:
- $3 billion military budget, a 20% increase in military spending over a six-year period.
- More mercenaries in Afghanistan (160) plus Danish police instructors; $50 million for Afghanistan’s openly corrupt police corps; aircraft and war vehicles come and go.
- More troops in Iraq (150) to lead the remaining NATO countries’ 500 “advisers.” This is Denmark’s third mission in Iraq. Its first delegation (2003-2007) aimed at crushing Saddam Hussein’s government and resistance forces. Denmark also has 14 operators at a United Arab Emirates airbase as part of its Iraq mission.
- Mercenaries in the Baltic (200-300). The Danes are there officially to keep “Putin’s troops away.” The three Baltic countries are in NATO and the EU and, thus, it is ludicrous to believe the Russians would invade.
- Mercenaries in Bosnia (400) and Kosovo (three dozen).
War Consequences Pre-Nord Stream Sabotage
Self-imposed sanctions against Russia are so extensive that the “chickens are coming home to roost.” Gas, oil and electricity rates soared by the hour—between two and eleven times normal the first year. City governments reduced heat in schools, and turned off street lamps at night to be able to stop using Russia’s cheap natural gas. Darkened neighborhood streets encourage thieves and rapists.
More dirty coal is being dug in Germany and England. Germany and Sweden are reopening nuclear energy power plants. One of the most polluting of all fossil fuels, fracking shale rock, is big business in the U.S., which is now transporting the liquid gas to Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and England has lifted its ban to do the same.
As fossil fuel and electricity rates increase dramatically, so do food prices. Inflation skyrockets. Major capitalists scoop up record profits, surpassing previous records, yet the government won’t tax them more. My heating bill increased 50% overnight.
Health workers tell us that anxiety and stress—uncertainty for our future—is the major health problem. A recent study shows that half of teenage girls don’t like themselves. Waiting lists for psychological help is one to two years. Welfare programs have been reduced. The health system is faltering for lack of funds.
My family doctor ordered an x-ray of my hands. They are falling asleep, pricking and tickling. The x-ray indicated I should have a further investigation that could lead to a minor operation. She ordered such. Six months passed until I was offered a further investigation in two years.
Too few and overworked nurses and doctors are exhausted—all because Western governments think it best to support the U.S.-ARME in its fanaticism to be the world’s policeman. Denmark has allowed Danish mercenaries to enter Ukraine through Poland and fight Russians. Besides what war materials and money Denmark sends to Ukraine, it has doubled funds for its own military budget, and will allocate $7 billion to rebuild its war fleet into, as it says, “a superpower naval force.”
To make up for uncontrollable free market price hikes, the government made a $12 billion bank loan guarantee for energy corporations. This, when their profits have never been so great.
At the cost of much more money, the government sent two F-16 jets, massive weaponry including tanks, and 1,000 troops to “defend the Baltic States and Poland against a Russian invasion.” It doesn’t occur to politicians and MSM that if Russians were so dumb as to invade a NATO country, then 31 others would retaliate. One country alone would be thoroughly crushed.
Some Danish analysts consider that the Social Democrats are outdoing the more traditionally warring “liberal” (Venstre) bourgeois party. A former prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was promoted to head NATO after he actually declared war against Iraq—the only country to do so—based upon the lie that it had weapons of mass destruction. (And, in any case, why should that be a reason to make war, given that scores of countries have such weapons?) Following his two terms as prime minister, Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg was promoted to the post where he has the distinction of having rejected every Russian proposal to find a peaceful solution.
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About the Author
Ron Ridenour is a U.S.-born author and journalist, anti-war and civil rights activist since 1961. After joining the U.S. Air Force at 17, he saw the inner workings of U.S. imperialism first hand and resigned. In the 1980s and 1990’s he worked with the Nicaraguan government and on Cuban national media.
He now lives in Denmark and, in addition to writing a dozen books, has served as a special correspondent and freelance investigative journalist for many publications in the U.S. and several Latin American and European countries—among them: The Morning Star, New Statesman, The Guardian (U.S. and England), Playboy, Liberation News Service, Pacific News Service, Coast Magazine, Qui, Skeptic, Seven Days, and Pacifica Radio.
CAM co-founder Philip Agee wrote commentaries to two of his dozen books: Yankee Sandinistas: Interviews with North Americans Living and Working in the New Nicaragua, and Backfire: CIA’s Biggest Burn. See also: The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert and Winding Brook Stories at Amazon and Lulu. Other work can be found at ronridenour.com.
Ron can be reached at ronrorama@gmail.com.
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‘Mercenaries in the Baltic (200-300). The Danes are there officially to keep “Putin’s troops away.”’ This reminds me of an episode in Winnie The Pooh where I believe Pooh has set a trap for Hefalumps. I believe Piggie says there are no Hefalumps here. Pooh replies, “See. It works!”
Although I generally have a positive impression of Scandinavia, there is a lot of anti-sedentism in Scandinavia which is concerning to say the least:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-817290
Not true. There is not much anti-semitism but rather anti-zionism. Just because people call Israel a fascist led state that commits genocide does not mean it is anti-semitic, that is, not against all Jews simply because they are Jews.
The tragedy of what Israel’s state, with the backing apparently of the vast vast majority of its Jewish citizens, is doing against all Palestinians in the Palestine parts of Israel, as well as in Lebanon. is genocide. While the methods are different than Hitler’s in part—there are no gas chambers–it is still indiscriminately killing and all Palestinians who “get in the way”, that is, just being where they must be.
The Jewish Post is not an independent source, in my view.
It is not the Jewish Post, it is the Jerusalem Post.
Is anti-seditism a movement to keep moving, not sitting around idly being sedentary?
The support for for Ukraine is not only military, but also to provide humanitarian aid and to help with the reconstruction of Ukraine. Here is a summary of the aid provided to Ukraine.
https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/articles/2024/july/5/nordic-support-for-ukraine-unified-commitment-to-ukraine-recovery
Thank you Colin for finding this site. As I indicated early article five will delve more into the costs and profits of this war for Scandinavians. The “humanitarian” factor is also costly for residents of Scandinavia.
According to the World Health Organization alcohol consumption is lower in Nordic countries:
Nordic countries have a long history of alcohol consumption, complex challenges with heavy episodic drinking practices, and a reputation of implementing some of the strongest regulations to reduce alcohol-related harms.
Today, alcohol drinking levels in the Nordic countries, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are among the lowest in the European Union. Unsurprisingly, alcohol is treated in many of these countries as no ordinary commodity and is strictly regulated.
WHO highlights some of the key elements of success:
bans or restrictions on the marketing of alcohol
taxation and pricing policies
limiting alcohol availability.