Paul, I agree with you, as you know; I too think the recruitment value of an American attack will be overwhelmed by the anti-recruitment value of a display of American power, especially against an odious Arab tyrant. Much of the pro-war/anti-war divide comes down to how you answer a single question: "Do you think that the use of American military power can ever fix anything?"
Here is an interesting description of the political situation in Norway from Bjørn Stærk's blog:
Saturday, February 15, 2003
The city fathers of Carthage 17:23 CET by Bjørn Stærk
I bought a book on the Falklands war on my way to see the anti-war protest in Oslo today, something to calm my hawkish nerves with if everyone started to sing Kumbayah. The police have estimated a crowd of 60 000 people on and around Youngstorget, so I'm very glad they didn't. A single paperback on a minor war wouldn't have been enough. I would have needed the collected works of Winston Churchill.
60 000 people out of a total population in Oslo of 500 000. That's 12% of the city, the largest ever protest in Norway. Other major cities saw similar numbers, adding to a total peace crowd of 100 000 Norwegians.
Whatever the peace movement may be in the United States, it's not a fringe leftist obsession in Norway. It's a mainstream mass movement. And it's not leftist as such. Sure, the wacky left was at the protest too. (I got a bit worried when I found myself stuck near Blitz, the hard-left/anarchist group that assaulted Oslo City Hall two weeks ago). But it's not their movement.
Maybe it's time I put into words what I see as the major foreign policy camps in Norway at the moment. I'm not sure how the this looks from the US, but I suspect that many have the impression of a clear split between pro-Americans and anti-Americans, right and left. It's not that simple. I identify at least four different lines of thinking in Norway - I'll call them radical leftists, neo-pacifists, traditionalists and radical rightists, in lack of existing terms - and they're for and against a war in Iraq for very different reasons.
We all know the radical left, favourite practice target of the blogosphere. Radical leftists see the United States and capitalism as major forces of evil. They're united by what they're against, and often find themselves on the same side as what should logically be their most bitter political enemies. The radical left may be larger here than in the US, but it's not a major political force, just a very loud one. It's basically the local chapter of a global underground movement with intellectual headquarters in the US.
The neo-pacifists make up most of the Norwegian peace movement. They are, perhaps, not pacifists in principle, but pacifists in practice. A product of generations of peace, democracy and capitalism, they identify war as the only possible threat to their security. Therefore, war is the ultimate evil. Able to imagine war, but not oppression, they value life over freedom, and will oppose almost any war up to the moment where the enemy forces actually cross your borders, (which some will see only as a sign to begin a peace process). Neo-pacifists imagine that an enlightened international state of affairs that will make war unnecessary, even impossible, is in the process of being formed. An American war on Iraq threatens that process, and violates the basic creed of neo-pacifism, which is that violence never solves anything. ("Tell that to--" see headline.) Exceptions are made for historical evils, like Nazism, precisely because they are historical, not current evils. Neo-pacifism appears to be popular all over Europe, Germany in particular.
In order to guarantee our security when World War 2 had ended, Norway decided to back two different horses: NATO (ie. the US) and the UN. NATO gave us short term protection against the Soviet Union. The UN would create long term security by limiting the freedom of individual nations to make war. Support of NATO and the UN has been our policy ever since, and I'll call the people who follow this line traditionalists. The traditionalists are aware that a small country needs allies, and, unlike the three other groups, their motivation is primarily realpolitikal. As traditionalists see it, Norway needs good relations with the US. It also needs a united NATO and a relevant UN. You'll never see a traditionalist play on anti-Americanism to win an election, or do anything to tear NATO or the UN apart. In the Iraq crisis, traditionalists are torn between their primary policy goals, propbably a major reason why Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and Foreign Minister Jan Petersen have so far refused to take a public stand on Iraq. They will likely tie their support for war entirely with the decision of the UNSC, from their point of view the safest balance between incompatible priorities. Traditionalism has its party base in the two primary mainstream parties, Labor and the Conservatives, but I suspect that a power base has also formed in the bureaucracy, and that a radical break with current policy would face considerable inertia.
There's a left/right split between neo-pacifists and traditionalists, but it should not be overemphasized.
The fourth camp is the radical right, which sees the United States and capitalism as major forces of good. To them, it's not only sensible to ally ourselves with the world's most important liberal democracy, but also right to do so. That feeling of an ideological bond with the US trumps any desire for a united NATO and a strong UN, and if supporting the US means leaving those organizations behind, then so be it. I'm partly describing my own views here, so this is probably the foreign policy camp I understand the least.
To give you an idea of how important these political camps are in Norway, polls tend to show about half the population unconditionally against war in Iraq, (radical left/neo-pacifists), and of the other half almost all in support on conditions of UN approval, (traditionalists), and only a small number unconditionally for, (radical right).
Today's protest was primarily neo-pacifist in nature. The people around me looked to me a fair sample of the population, (except that they were almost all native Norwegians. I'm not sure what this means.) These were regular Norwegians, too sensible for wacky ideologies, taking a rare stand for a cause they believe in. Watching it all, I was struck by a sense of futility. If indeed neo-pacifism is a product of liberal democracy, is then our society doomed in the long run? Will ever-increasing wealth and security only make us unable and unwilling to defend our country against future aggressors? It did work out 60 years ago, though, and Europe wasn't any more sensible then. At the very least, neo-pacifism is a significant long term threat to Norway, being both seductive and suicidal. Norway's future may not turn on whether we follow the US into Iraq, but it does turn on our ability to recognize and respond to military threats. Iraq is not yet a direct threat to Norway, and there are, of course, good arguments against this war, but neo-pacifist opposition to war isn't about carefully weighed pro's vs con's. In the neo-pacifist worldview there are only con's, no pro's, and the solution to all the worlds problems seems just a hand-joining folk-song singing session away.
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