Essay " Strategy " : Contemporary Security and Strategy An European Strategic culture (original) (raw)
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Strategic Culture and National Security Policy
C ulture has become fashionable in mainstream international relations scholarship in the post-Cold War era. One of the most surprising aspects of the renaissance of scholarly interest in culture has been the emerging consensus in national security policy studies that culture can affect significantly grand strategy and state behavior. Scholars and practitioners have begun to interpret events like the U.S.-China standoff over a downed spy plane in 2001 or escalating tensions between Palestinians and Israelis through the lens of national identity and culture. While these concepts found their way into classic works on international conflict, including Carl von Clausewitz's On War in 1831 and Quincy Wright's A Study of War in 1942, descriptions of actual causal linkages remained vague. 1 During the Cold War, scholars attempted to develop a theory of political culture, and Jack Snyder drew these ideas into security policy studies by coining the term "strategic culture" in the late 1970s. Nevertheless, critics charged that there was little progress toward the development of a unified theory of culture that might rival neorealism, and at the end of the Cold War, even supporters were concerned that culture remained "the explanation of last resort" for puzzling state behavior. 2 Today, scholars have rediscovered the theory of strategic culture to explain national security policy. 3 Alastair Johnston's exploration in 1995 of "cultural 1 Carl von Clausewitz, On War [1831], ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.
Germany and the use of force, 2018
The decision making process in matters of defence is not an abstract construct based purely in the present moment but is, rather, steeped in the beliefs, biases, traditions and cultural identity of the individual countryall of which feeds into its strategic culture. 1 [R]ather than obedience or disobedience to an abstract set of stipulative requirements, in times of war what really makes the difference is how a nation state, as a collective identity, 'behaves' is the structure of that nation's history and experience-its strategic culture, if you will. 2 Key issues and developments in German security policy since 1989 form the overall focus of this book, while the more specific question to be dealt with relates to the evolution of German perspectives on the use of military force in international politics in the post-Cold War period, using the concept of strategic culture to interpret the subject matter. As argued in the Introduction, that concept is useful in yielding insights on both theoretical and empirical issues relating to developments in German security policy since 1989. The aim of this chapter, consequently, is to consider the concept of strategic culture in greater detail and to locate it within the field of security studies. Contending approaches Neo-realism and German normalisation As the Cold War came to a close, a frenzy of analysis on the future of German security policy emerged. Consideration of how German post-Cold War security policy might develop reflected a far broader and fundamental discussion, within the discipline of international
On the variable of strategic culture: Modus operandi of military interventions in the Middle East
2019
The research subject of this article is the variable of strategic culture that has been subjected to some academic inertia since the Cold War period. The aim of this article is to define practical implications of the strategic culture through the prism of the neoclassical realist theory. It supports the argument that military interventional precedents in the Middle East since 2011 have been revealing adaptive considerations of the strategic culture as an intervening variable that implies interventional military decisions by the U.S. and its coalition partners. The first part of the article defines the precise role of this intervening variable as military interventional precedents are researched. This task is conducted by defining the general understanding of interventional initiatives, revealing structured assumptions of the neoclassical realist theory, and reconsidering the role of the strategic culture within that theoretical framework. The second part of the article shifts the attention to supportive empirical considerations regarding the strategic culture and perception of operational ideas – two specifi cally highlighted neoclassical realist assumptions. The article discloses that Western strategic culture is a changing intervening variable with a different level of permissiveness. A changing continuum of permissiveness is implied by interventional experiences that shape perception of the structural environment and dictate preferences for the power scale of interventional decisions. From this, the level of the structural environment’s permissiveness is defined. This permissiveness is associated with capabilities for implementing political objectives without further escalations of military power. Once the systemic environment becomes more permissive, the possibility of activating military intervention of various force-escalation becomes more conceivable.
Characterizing the European Union's Strategic Culture: An Analytical Framework
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2011
This article does not question whether the EU has a strategic culture, but rather asks how one can investigate its nature. It creates and utilizes an analytical framework to demonstrate that the European Union's strategic culture is based on an extended concept of security and on a comprehensive, multilateral and internationally legitimated approach to threats, implying the use of military and civilian instruments in an integrated manner on over 20 common security and defence policy (CSDP) operations. It suggests that the analytical framework can also act as a stable reference point to compare and contrast the strategic cultures of a range of actors. 1 Snyder (1977, pp. 8-9) directly transplants the notion of political culture into an international context (see also Gray, 1981, pp. 35-7).
Security and Defense Scientific Journal, Issue 1, Vasil Levski National Military University Publishing Complex, 2024
The article is devoted to the evolution of European Union strategic documents, considered in the light of the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the European Security and Defense Policy/Common Security and Defense Policy integrated in it. Through the comparative analysis, conclusions are drawn that contribute to the understanding of the dynamics shaping strategic thinking and culture in the European Union in the field of Common Foreign and Security Policy/ Common Security and Defense Policy.
The influence of strategic culture on shaping security policy
2019
Objectives: The aim of the article is to examine the role that strategic culture plays in creating and shaping security of the future. Taking account of the purpose of this paper, the main research problem took the form of the following question: To what extent does strategic culture have an influence on shaping security of the future? Methods: In order to achieve the aim of this paper and solve the main research problem, the following research methods will be applied: method of analysis, synthesis and method of conclusion.The empirical methods facilitate examination of processes with the aim of drawing conclusions. The article uses a research method such as observation. Results: Strategic culture is not a dogma or a camera through which we can look into the past or the future. It is a tool useful for understanding how and what the circumstances are in which a country defines appropriate measures and goals to achieve its goals regarding security. Conclusions: Strategic culture can help us to understand the real cultural identity of a particular entity (such as a country or an organisation) and its role in the system of international relations in a better way. Therefore, it can contribute to a better understanding of security policy implemented by the entity and, what is more, an analysis of strategic culture can lead to a better understanding of the opponent's strategic behaviour on the basis of how the opponent defines victory, defeat, loss and suffering.
2005
There is enormous intuitive appeal to the idea that, if “culture matters” at some general level, then it must also be important in shaping national security processes and outcomes. There is an extensive academic literature on this issue—often called “strategic culture”—and it serves as a sort of “folk theorem” that practitioners and casual observers of foreign affairs find compelling.