In this article we broaden the conventional understanding of prestige and show that prestige-seeking played a major role in the Danish and Norwegian decisions to provide military support to post-Cold War US-led wars. Both countries made costly military contributions in the hope of increasing their standing and prestige in Washington. Both governments regarded prestige as a form of soft power, which they could later convert into access, influence, and US support. Our findings are far from trivial. They make a theoretical contribution by demonstrating that small powers understand and seek prestige in ways that differ fundamentally from the ways great powers do. They also help to explain why smaller US allies made costly contributions to the Balkan, Afghan, Iraq, and Libyan wars at a time when there was no direct threat to their national security and their security dependence on the United States was low. The high value that small US allies attach to their visibility and prestige in Washington suggests that it is far easier for the United States to obtain military support from smaller allies than Realist studies of burden-sharing and collective action problems would lead us to expect.

中文翻译：

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寻求声望的小国：丹麦和挪威对美国领导的行动的军事贡献

在本文中，我们拓宽了对声望的传统理解，并表明寻求声望在丹麦和挪威为冷战后美国领导的战争提供军事支持的决定中发挥了重要作用。两国都做出了代价高昂的军事贡献，以期提高自己在华盛顿的地位和威望。两国政府都将声望视为软实力的一种形式，它们以后可以将其转化为访问权、影响力和美国的支持。我们的发现远非微不足道。他们通过证明小国以与大国的方式根本不同的方式理解和寻求威望而做出了理论贡献。它们还有助于解释为什么较小的美国盟友对巴尔干、阿富汗、伊拉克、和利比亚的战争是在他们的国家安全没有直接威胁并且他们对美国的安全依赖程度很低的时候发生的。美国小盟友对其在华盛顿的知名度和声望的高度重视表明，美国从较小的盟友那里获得军事支持要比对分担和集体行动问题的现实主义研究让我们预期的要容易得多。