The Nordic Countries from War to Cold War – and Today¹

1 This text is based on a keynote speech delivered at the international historical conference on ‘The Nordic Countries: From War to Cold War, 1944–51’, hosted by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office at London on 1 April 2011.

Abstract

History is much present for the British and Nordic peoples, which means it can also be controversial and instrumentalized. Documents like the new FCO collection help to remind us that the past was truly in some ways ‘another country’. In the early post-war years, for example, before collective nuclear deterrence, there was huge uncertainty both over the scale of Communist advances and the viability of Western defence. The Nordic defence pact alternative thus deserved serious thought, but the reasons for its ultimate sidelining carry lessons still relevant today about the limits and functionality of Nordic cooperation. Interestingly, Britain seemed (and seems?) driven to repeatedly seek more from the latter than it can deliver. While close, British–Nordic relations were and remain prone to misapprehension and ruffled sensitivities caused inter alia by different ‘mental maps’ and group-building instincts. The documents underline the perennial role of Ambassadors in attempting to translate Nordic realities to London, albeit with a constant risk of being over-frustrated or over-charmed by one's hosts.

Keywords:

• Scandinavia
• Great Britain
• Cold War
• foreign policy
• Denmark
• Iceland
• Finland
• Sweden
• Norway
• security
• Soviet Union
• Nordic cooperation

Notes

1 This text is based on a keynote speech delivered at the international historical conference on ‘The Nordic Countries: From War to Cold War, 1944–51’, hosted by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office at London on 1 April 2011.

2 The difficulty of this issue and the conventional warfare assumptions on which it was approached are particularly clear in the minute from Hankey to Bateman, 22 December 1948, FO 371/71453, N13444/3001/63G (No. 162).

3 See especially the telegram from Bevin to Inverchapel, 10 March 1948, PREM 8/788 (No. 123): ‘France and the United Kingdom with the Benelux countries could not by themselves defend Scandinavia against pressure’. The next sentence delicately hints that France might not even care to do so.

4 This was a period in the 1970s–1980s when Denmark wished to disassociate itself from certain NATO positions notably on nuclear strategy, and did so by adding footnotes to the relevant NATO documents.

5 The reference is to Finland's untypically thoroughgoing integration into the EU and reliance on the EU for strategic shelter – on the one hand – and Denmark's recent close alignment with US and UK strategic policy trends, on the other. For more on Nordic variations in national strategy, see Bailes, ‘Does a Small State Need a Strategy?’

6 This resulted in a meeting at London in January 2011: the official report is at http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/topstorynews/2011/01/uk-hosts-nordic-baltic-summit-58940 (accessed February 2011).

7 Despatch from Collier to Bevin, 22 November 1950, FO 371/86535, NN 1015/18 (No. 212).

8 This passage is based on the minute from Henniker-Major to Makins, 1 November 1949, FO 371/77725, N9782/1192/42 (No. 199).

9 Despatch from Shepherd to Bevin, 24 November 1945, FO 371/47450, N17623/10928/63G (No. 41).

10 Bridge, ‘Baltic States Seek Defence Guarantees’. Bridge describes Nordic spokesmen as ‘horrified’ at Hurd's ideas.

11 This term is used and the problem especially well spelt out in the despatch from Randall to Bevin, 11 January 1946, FO 371/56126, N669/394/15 (No. 46). Another complaint of these ambassadors that would be totally relevant today is the imbalance between the numbers and seniority of official Nordic visitors to the UK and the reverse.

12 See for instance the complaints from HMA Oslo in the letter from Collier to Sargent, 15 November 1945, FO 371/47528, N16016/716/30 (No. 40): ‘In our present position it is so much easier to satisfy amour propre than to satisfy the material requests of foreign Governments that I am frankly at a loss to understand why…’ (continues with complaints about MAFF insensitivity).

13 Despatch from Thornton to Bevin, 4 April 1949, FO 371/77402, N3868/1075/63 (No. 109). For anyone living in Reykjavik in 2008–2009, there is huge resonance in the same despatch's reference to Icelandic public ‘shock’ that things could get so far out of hand, and in Dr Thornton's final remark (p. 337) that the ‘crack in the wall of Icelandic complacency’ would not now – and perhaps should not be – so easily repaired.

14 Despatch from Mallet to Eden, 29 May 1945, FO 371/48042, N7135/1106/42 (No. 10).

15 Letter from Sir L. Collier to Mr Hankey, 18 March 1949, FO 371/77396, N2886/1072/63 (No. 190).