The concept of strategic culture came into being through a rigorous process of evolution and development, and provides an alternative perspective in international relations to analyze, understand, and study the motives behind policy decisions of a state. Unlike realism, which focuses entirely on the state, or liberalism, which provides an idealistic view, strategic culture is a holistic approach and an amalgam of realist, liberalist, and constructivist thoughts that play a crucial—in fact, the most important—role in decision-making, especially in modern times. Strategic culture is a basic ingredient behind foreign policy making, planning of defense strategies, and even navigating internal political challenges.
In modern times, where international politics is impacted by factors beyond conventional security measures, the scope of strategic culture is vast; providing a bigger space and room for holistic decision-making. This is because strategic culture is a tool that not only helps in policymaking but also plays a crucial role in threat perception. What makes strategic culture such an important tool are ingredients like historical, geographical, economic, and societal factors.
There is no one definition of strategic culture but every definition and thought school boils down to one main point; strategic culture is a set of ideas and beliefs that shape perception and develop an outlook to view and navigate complex international politics, particularly in the realm of security. The two main definitions of strategic culture are, firstly, in a podcast episode titled “Exploring Strategic Culture” by Andrew Scobell and Dr. Lawrence A. Kuznar. Dr. Kuznar defined Strategic culture as “a set of beliefs, ideas, ideologies, and collective behaviors that shape perception of strategic outlook.” Secondly, according to Alaister Johnston, “Strategic culture is a total of beliefs and ideas shaping perceptions.”
In light of definitions, strategic culture plays a crucial role in decision making as it not only involves political tools, it incorporates tool of culture. Culture has a crucial impact on strategic decision making, as culture is the sum total of human interactions and behaviors, and human being the culture agents, influence the strategic thought as well as historical experiences. According to Ken Booth, strategic culture is important because firstly it prevents from developing ethnocentric biases, secondly it provides a lens to policymakers for analyzing states’ relations holistically and lastly, it provides historical backings.
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According to Alaister Johnston, strategic culture is an important tool for decision-making because it provides three levels. Firstly, the macroenvironmental level consists of geography and history. Secondly, the social level consists of society, economy, and politics. Thirdly, the micro level, emphasizing military institutions and civil-military relations. The world is evolving so is security dynamics, and efficient decision making requires aligning with contemporary trends and challenges. This makes strategic culture an important tool for decision making because of its evolving nature, as it has been developed through 4 major phases, each phase was a need of the hour. In his scholarly work titled “Strategic Thought and its (re)construction” Dagi says “strategic culture is neither ephemeral not eternal.”
Pakistan’s strategic culture, for instance, is India-centric, ideologically grounded in Islam and the Two-Nation Theory, and security-focused. This culture drives policy decisions, such as acquiring a nuclear arsenal to counter India. Narratives like Yahood o Nisaar and support for Palestine reflect its ideological stance. Brig Naeem Salik, in Pakistan’s Security Challenges (ed. Salma Malik), cites Thorton, noting Pakistan’s historical insecurity at inception, shaping its foreign policy and decision-making. Historical grievances thus remain central to its strategic culture.
Moreover, under the second phase of strategic culture during the 1980s to early 1990s, scholars viewed strategic culture as a tool of political hegemony, where public statements often contradicted real motives. Two strategies exist: declaratory and hidden motives. The USA’s strategic culture, rooted in power and dominance, shows this—portraying liberal democracy while imposing sanctions. Russia’s strategic culture, shaped by its Soviet legacy, explains its 2014 annexation of Crimea, justified by historical and demographic ties.
Strategic culture is an amalgamation of culture, history, security, and geography of a nation that provides a basis for understanding of a nation’s national interest, motives behind policies, be it foreign, domestic or defense, anti-secessionist role in peacemaking, waging war, and conflict mediation. The term was coined by Jack Snyder and doesn’t have a fixed definition. It is a rather new concept interconnecting multiple disciplines for holistic understanding in security discourse and has undergone evolution, and to date has been evolving. The importance of strategic culture cannot be undermined, especially when works like “The Prince” provides basis for a strategic culture. For contemporary geopolitics, therefore, holds great relevance.
Firstly, strategic culture is an evolutionary concept that has undergone 4 important phases, as explained in Johnson’s work. Initially, strategic culture was a static concept, but with the evolution of time and the evolution of the security landscape, strategic culture underwent important discourses and became a dynamic concept inbuilt in empirical approach. As a concept, strategic culture is still evolving in contemporary world politics, reflecting its adaptability. In a recent article on strategic culture, the writer emphasized this evolutionary aspect of strategic culture by presenting a case study of the role of Ukraine’s civil society in the security sector, reflecting that earlier strategic culture was defense-centric, but now it has evolved into including non-governmental and non-defense sectors like civil society as a crucial part of strategic culture.
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Secondly, according to a podcast with Dr. Lawerance Kuzno, he stated that strategic culture came into being due to limitation of the realist and neo-realist schools of thought in explaining complex strategic dynamics. However, as it takes centuries or, to be less exaggerated at least decades of thinking and evolution for a concept to be materialized as a theory. Therefore, strategic culture being a relatively new concept that came into being in the second half of the last century, is not yet a theory, but its potential to answer complex interconnected questions makes it a promising IR theory in the future.
This argument that Strategic culture can be the next dominant IR theory is reflected in its interconnected nature, which is evident in recent trilateral cooperation between Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (TAG), for which the traditionalist material school of thought has limited scope to explain, making strategic culture a tool that is needed for the discourse of this trilateral cooperation.
Thirdly, due to its evolutionary nature, strategic culture is potent in explaining why a certain nation acts in a certain way through its historical evolution. For example the historical evolution of USA from colonial legacy to a world power reflects evolution of strategic thought with elements of liberation, American dream, hegemony, struggle for liberation, pragmatism and goal oriented approach helps us understand Washington’s present day policies through analysis from lens of strategic culture very pertinent in understanding causes of Thucydydes trap due to rise of China leading towards Cold War 2.0.
Lastly, strategic culture is an interdisciplinary school of thought integrating principles of International Relations, Security Studies, Cultural Studies, and Psychology, providing a way towards a holistic understanding of world politics and contemporary affairs, giving researchers and academics a new line of thinking towards building a new paradigm.
*The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Diplomatic Insight.
Kashaf Imran
Kashaf Imran is an MS Scholar at CIPS, NUST; focused on analyzing geopolitics and great power competitions through an interdisciplinary lens. She can be reached at kashafimran59@gmail.com
