The Horse Squadron poses at Kastellet in Copenhagen. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In the Red-Green Alliance’s democratically adopted principles programme it states:

“The Red-Green Alliance works for peaceful development in the world through dialogue, international détente and military disarmament”

Despite this, we can now hear, amongst others from [Red Green Alliance spokesperson and MP] Pelle Dragsted that the Red-Green Alliance has now begun to support rearmament. With this undemocratic manœuvre there is now a political consensus at Christiansborg that Denmark should rearm.

And that is extremely problematic. Because rearmament pulls money out of welfare and passes it on to the war-criminal and climate-damaging arms industry.

But worst of all because it takes as its starting point a logic that only Russia and the US are imperialistic. In the process, the more relevant struggle against Danish and European imperialism is sidelined.

Welfare or weapons?

In the programme Debatten on DR, the host asked Pelle Dragsted whether the Red-Green Alliance’s rearmament policy would be expensive. Dragsted answered very bluntly: “It probably will be”.

And that’s quite worrying, because our welfare is in crisis. Our pension age is set to rise to 73 years, the mentally ill are having their benefits cut, and important public employees are underpaid.

But it’s even more worrying when you see where the money ends up. Because Danish rearmament will naturally be great profit for an extremely terrible arms industry.

For example, the Defence Force in connection with the new rearmament has entered into an agreement with the Danish weapons producer Terma, which amongst other things also supplies weapons to the apartheid state Israel. And not so long ago the defence force also bought weapons from the Israeli weapons producer Elbit.

At the same time, the military industry is also enormously climate-damaging. It accounts for a total of 5.5 per cent of the world’s CO₂ emissions (by comparison, aviation accounts for 2.5 per cent of the world’s CO₂ emissions).

One could argue that rearmament should be financed by taxing the rich, and that weapons production should be nationalised, so the money doesn’t go to the arms industry.

But the problem is that it’s not like that. The money from rearmament is taken from our welfare. And Denmark continues to get its weapons from the private arms industry. This means that if the Red-Green Alliance works for rearmament, the party will in practice work to pull money out of welfare and into the war-criminal arms industry. Even though that’s not the intention.

Denmark is also imperialistic

One of the arguments that is often used to get the Red-Green Alliance to support rearmament goes like this: Because the US is an imperialist country, Denmark and the EU should rearm, so we are no longer dependent on the US – and thus no longer have to follow along with its imperialistic politics.

This is very clear in the introduction to the main proposal for Red-Green Alliance defence policy, which is to be dealt with at the annual meeting. But it can also be seen when Per Clausen and Jakob Ruggaard, with reference to Russia and the US, write in an opinion piece in Solidaritet.dk:

"But when we suddenly – and it can happen quickly – face a dirty ’peace’, which is dictated by right-wing radical great powers, it requires new, more offensive answers from us on the left. We must ask ourselves: How do we ensure that we won’t again be able to be driven around in the ring by imperialistic great powers?

Here we must realise that if we want to win the possibility for security policy autonomy, it requires investments. In our security. In military. Also in weapons and military production in Europe, the Nordic region, Denmark."

Per Clausen and Jakob Ruggaard thus make it sound as if Russia and the US are the primary imperialistic great powers we should deal with. The problem is that Europe and Denmark are also imperialistic.

The EU’s military missions, which are heavily characterised by crimes against humanity, contribute greatly to maintaining imperialistic structures. And the EU’s agricultural support causes massive damage to the economies of the global south. But worst of all, the EU is part of the imperialistic exploitation where the global north profits at the expense of the global south.

As a member of the EU, Denmark is part of that imperialism. But beyond that, Denmark is also an imperialist power in itself. Denmark has colonial rule over Greenland. Danish companies like Maersk and Terma support Israel’s genocide with weapons. And Denmark’s “green transition” also happens at the expense of countries in the global south.

Denmark and Europe are therefore also imperialistic. By strengthening our military we will therefore only strengthen the apparatus that maintains this imperialism.

Drop rearmament – strengthen climate and welfare

And we should all be able to accept the fact that imperialistic powers have and always will promote their own interests – here all tricks apply. Therefore a so-called territorial defence cannot become a reality as long as Denmark and Europe are imperialistic.

To strengthen Denmark’s and Europe’s defence means to strengthen our own imperialism. We should instead focus on combating imperialism – including fighting for disarmament and against rearmament.

So let us rather work for the money that is now to go to the arms industry to instead go to welfare and climate. The struggle against US imperialism must never distract from the more relevant struggle against our own imperialism. As Karl Liebknecht once said in connection with the First World War: The main enemy is at home.

Julius Vejle Johansen and Emil Larsen are active in Red -Green Youth (Denmark)