Abstract
To explain how the Danish government succeeded in mobilizing and sustaining public support for the operation, we develop a novel analytical framework that incorporates insights from the two bodies of thought above as well as the emerging literature on strategic narratives. We identify six conditions for success from these literatures that governments must be able to meet in order to mobilize and sustain public support for military operations and demonstrate empirically that these conditions apply in the Danish case. The secret Danish recipe for maintaining support for the Afghan war thus came down to the government’s ability to craft a strategic narrative that met the conditions for success stipulated by our framework.