Photo: Wikimedia Commons

We find ourselves on the edge of a new world order. And if we don’t pull ourselves together, we may also stand on the brink of a new authoritarian age. Where anti-democratic leaders agree to boldly ignore rights, institutions and principles, when they divide the world amongst themselves and their oligarch friends.

This requires new political answers from the left. In these new times we face, no one can excuse themselves from providing clear, concise and concrete answers on how we can save international law, justice and solidarity – as well as defend our equal, democratic welfare societies. Especially not us on the left.

For if the world is not to fall too easily into the hands of authoritarian rogue states, it requires a strong left with offensive security policy answers and a clear strategy for winning the future.

A world without justice?

The world stands at a crossroads. A rupture. And the atrocities cry out to heaven.

Netanyahu’s Israel uses hunger as a weapon against Gaza’s civilian population. Food and basic emergency aid cannot get in. Meanwhile, Israel is preparing a full-scale invasion, which would continue the murders and drive out even more of the hard-pressed Palestinian population in Gaza.

In Ukraine, Putin and his dictatorial regime attempt to seize Ukrainian land and subjugate and oppress the population. Because they have imperialist, pan-Russian ambitions. Completely against law, justice and fairness.

Donald Trump has placed the US on the dictator side of both conflicts. He sends weapons and military support worth billions, and thereby helps Netanyahu kill Palestinians, block emergency aid and drive them from their homes in Gaza.

And he uses the Ukrainians’ acute dependence on US weapons and intelligence to pressure them into ceding their territory to Putin and ceding the riches in their underground to Trump himself. Meanwhile, the US – together with countries like Israel, North Korea and Russia – votes against condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the UN.

With Trump we are dealing with a common thief who supports right-wing extremist forces’ oppression of people and territory in full, open conflict with international law and common human justice and in alliance with rogue states. Perhaps because he himself has territorial ambitions to seize Greenland from the Greenlanders, completely against their wishes.

These are all unfortunately familiar tragedies, but they have far-reaching consequences.

Firstly, it means that international institutions, law and justice are under pressure defensively, as rarely before. We see an expanded group of authoritarian, dangerous regimes on an expansion course. And we see the US position itself politically, ideologically on their side in open opposition to our democracies and welfare societies, which Trump, Vance, their billionaire oligarch friends and their MAGA movement openly regard as enemies to be fought, threatened and subjugated. Because our regulation threatens their rich man’s interests. Because our welfare societies are a thorn in their eye.

Secondly, the reality we face means that we can no longer soberly count on the US helping to defend countries in Europe (not even smaller NATO countries), if the conflict with Russia intensifies. We have seen how obsequiously Trump acts towards Putin, whom he probably almost regards as a friend and source of inspiration (and an ideological MAGA ally in the fight against welfare states, freedom and democracy).

All this has far-reaching consequences, which necessitate a much-needed 360-degree review of our security policy in the broadest sense. For all parties and countries. Also for us socialists.

The consequences of the world’s current development are frightening. And many people are spending time right now “tuning out” or following passively and slightly shaken along with the international news, which becomes more and more mad day by day. The time we live in has become more uncertain and harsh. The occupied people in Ukraine and Gaza pay the ultimate price. We all feel the uncertainty.

At the same time, the violent events right now should help us to see more clearly what is really at stake – and develop the modern, clear socialist security policy that is needed.

Socialist security policy

The left has long had many important security policy insights, which we can build our future security policy on.

We have:

– Warned that Danish obsequiousness towards US interests makes Denmark and the world less safe.
– Worked persistently for a Nordic defence union, something which has only become more important and current.
– Refused to participate in both the US’s imperialist wars of aggression and military operations led by European colonial interests.
– Criticised an amoral and hypercapitalist arms industry, which earns dizzying sums from equipping the worst and most oppressive states in the world with weapons, weapons systems and surveillance technology.
– Consistently insisted on international law and justice, human rights, conventions, international institutions and solidarity with oppressed peoples.
– Fought to expand the welfare state and our security to Danish workers, which makes Denmark less vulnerable to right-wing extremist forces.
– Defended public service and DR against the right wing’s attacks and fought misinformation, Big Tech and oligarch-owned media.

And the left stood at the forefront in the fight against fascism, when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, and official Denmark decided that the Germans should be allowed to occupy our country without military resistance.

We have reason to be proud of all that. These are important policy areas where we have been proven right, and it constitutes an enormous strength in the coming time.

But, if we are to be honest and look inward, we have not sufficiently formulated a coherent socialist security policy that takes the full consequences of precisely those insights. This has become crystal clear with the great shifts of our time.

Real independence

The most striking thing is that the real independence from the US, which the left has historically insisted on for many years, in the real world can only be bought with a markedly strengthened defence capability and close defence policy cooperation with the democratic countries with which we share the most interests and values.

If a Nordic defence cooperation is to make sense, the Nordic countries together must have the strength to speak with great collective weight in European cooperation circles, in NATO, in the EU and bilaterally with allied countries. This requires, among much else, that we collectively have an effective and well-functioning modern defence. And Denmark must naturally also carry its share solidarily.

It requires investments to restore our defence. Especially after the so-called responsible parties have been responsible for decades of cuts and wrong priorities in the defence away from being able to defend us against threats and towards a military that was to follow the US in illegal and destructive wars. Those were catastrophic wrong decisions. It is necessary and right to prioritise the investments that can correct that error.

For there is nothing socialist in fighting to maintain a weak defence capability in Denmark, which actually puts us in a vassal-like dependency relationship with the US and makes us unable to formulate an independent and critical foreign and security policy in the crucial coming time.

There is also nothing socialist in fighting for one of the best-functioning welfare countries in the world, which based on socialist ideas and hard workers’ struggle has created the greatest security and freedom for the working class in the world and (even with their errors and shortcomings) some of the most well-functioning democracies in the world, but at the same time to stand politically naked or weak on defence and security at a time when fascism is really knocking on the door.

On the contrary. Socialism is to fight for a peaceful world, to fight for international law and to fight solidarily against the conquering expeditions of authoritarian forces.

The political forces and the countries that most realistically and most consistently can take up the fight for both international law, international solidarity, international institutions, welfare, equality, security and democracy must not stand weak and defenceless in the rawer world we face.

We must have power and influence to fight for our values and ideals. For whether we like it or not, we can no longer take those values for granted. Therefore, the answer cannot be to withdraw completely from the debate, turn a blind eye and give our ailing defence “the chainsaw treatment”, as two writers recently suggest in Solidaritet.dk.

Yes, we must naturally work for a peaceful world with dialogue, détente and mutual military disarmament, as we in the Red-Green Alliance write in our principles programme. But we don’t do that by leaving Denmark defenceless in a time when fascism, authoritarian forces and imperialism are advancing as rarely before.

When we hear the tramp of boots on the horizon, and democratic countries are threatened by dictatorial powers, we must both be able to defend ourselves and help solidarily. That is the socialist answer.

Offensive socialist answers

The Danish government’s defence policy is deeply problematic. It naively submitts to the US – even after everything we have seen.

The Danish Defence Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, charges ahead wanting to buy American weapons and weapons systems. That is naive and thoughtless. The government’s new PET law is to mass-surveil the Danes and is presumably to operate with Palantir technology. Yes, you read that right. While the US is predatory towards Greenland, the government wants to give the scandal-ridden surveillance company Palantir access to mass surveillance of the Danes. A massive security threat with Donald Trump in the White House.

These are just two examples of the government refusing to draw the consequences of the US acting as an enemy. That is misguided and dangerous.

We must not deepen our dependence on the US with all that we know now. We must do the opposite: comprehensive, planned strategic independence. That will require investments, but they buy us freedom.

At the same time, the government’s right-wing defence policy expresses deep and groundless market optimism. Almost babbling naivety towards the arms industry.

Without real demands for export control or any political pressure against excessive profits and billion dividend payments to shareholders, they throw – completely uncritically – billions after an industry that cannot equip Ukraine and Europe, because it sells much of its material to Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. This must stop. Control must be taken back from the market’s destructive chaos.

We socialists must make a new offensive policy, which both enables us to defend democracies, welfare states and welfare societies against dictators and defend international law and justice against right-wing extremist bullies. For we must not let our country lie open to the first and best superpower that looks hungrily at our territory or natural resources.

Here are the main points of a new offensive security policy:
– Defence must mean defence. Rejection and combating of any imperialist war of aggression.
– Clear export control with weapons production – no weapons to rogue states, but weapons to Ukraine.
– Public ownership of weapons production.
– Good wages and working conditions for those who work in defence and are ready to pay the ultimate price.
– No investments in security must be made at the expense of welfare or the green transition.
– We must invest in security in the broadest sense – preparedness, climate security, green transition, technological, energy and strategic independence from rogue states – including the US.
– Weapons production should be kept local if possible – investments should preferably go to Denmark or the Nordic region.
– We must invest massively in diplomacy and work purposefully for dialogue, mutual disarmament agreements, détente and peace.
– We must create more security in the labour market, a stronger welfare society, a more equal society (and world) – that is one of the most important bulwarks against right-wing extremist forces being able to take root in Denmark.

The left’s task

It is neither an expression of any “undemocratic manœuvres” nor “turn to the right” to insist on a socialist security policy for a new time.

On the contrary, it is an expression of taking the important security policy recognitions that the left has historically stood for seriously. Building further on we socialists’ historical heritage and experiences. Never again shall we stand in a situation like 9^th April, where authoritarian forces can break us without fight and resistance. [On 9 April 1940, nazi forces launched Operation Weserübung and invaded both Denmark and Norway. Denmark surrendered within just six hours, with the Danish government deciding that German military superiority was too great to justify further resistance. AN]

And unfortunately, help and resistance against dictators becomes more important and moves closer in the world, as it looks today.

We have a world to win. Against fascism, dictatorship, bullying methods, imperialism and rogue states. We don’t win it if we cannot defend ourselves and our nearest.

Jakob L. Ruggaard is a Member of the Red-Green Alliance (DK)
Per Clausen is a Member of the European Parliament for the Red-Green Alliance.