What’s wrong with Strategic Culture?
A lot say the critics. You know a concept is in trouble when the theorist who gave birth to it, abandons it. Whilst others have gone on to adopt Jack Snyder’s concept, it remains a neglected sibling and unable to establish itself firmly amongst other mainstream theories — unlike its intellectual sparring cousin, neorealism, whose ability to explain state behaviour is accepted almost as gospel by many. Conversely, strategic culture is often seen as an “explanation of last resort” in international politics.
This (rather lengthy) blog seeks to establish why this might be the case. But more importantly, with support from strategic culture’s champions, it seeks to trade blows with those protagonists who argue against the theory’s utility. Weirdly, its opponents actually expect too much of it. This is surprising as any student of International Relations knows that (a) complex state decision-making cannot be explained by a single theory and (b) that each concept has its virtues and shortcomings. Is strategic culture any different? Not really.
So, what should we expect from it? Perhaps three things. First, to improve our understanding of our own and others’ cultures. Could this be any more important in an age where misunderstanding of others has led to protracted conflicts, not least of which in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Second, as a result of the first, understanding strategic culture enables us to better discern the policy motivations of others and thus help predict their actions. Finally, we might be able to interpret the meaning of other states’ behaviour more accurately and thus apply some sensible policy solutions.
The first problem: what actually is strategic culture?
The late great Colin S. Gray, a strategist who extolled the strengths of strategic culture, also warned of its pitfalls. In his last article on the subject in 2006, he warned that strategic culture was an opaque and vague concept that may try to explain too much to be useful and is often used as a panacea solution. Soldier-scholar Professor Antulio J. Echevarria II, one of the principal protagonists against strategic culture, believes these “pitfalls point to the same problem” — the difficulty in defining strategic culture.[1]
One of Echevarria’s key criticisms is that strategic culture is difficult to understand and define because, paradoxically, there are so many different definitions doing the rounds, none of which appear authoritative.[2] This is true, but many mainstream academic theories would have fallen at the first hurdle if they were measured against a level of scholarly agreement on their definition — a lack of consensus is often a sign that a concept is performing well, not badly! However, Echevarria raises critical concerns that can’t be dismissed so flippantly. In the same 2006 article, Gray claims that Snyder’s definition is good enough to get on with. Strategic culture is:
“the sum total of ideas, conditioned emotional responses, and patterns of behaviour that members of a national strategic community have acquired through instruction or imitation and share with each other with regard to strategy”.
For Echevarria though, the sum total of ideas and emotional responses can never be known[3]: we cannot know for certain whether CDS or the Defence Secretary share the ideas of Liddell Hart, Corbett, or indeed Gray himself. Critics argue it is difficult to trace the influence of particular ideas on members of the national security community. It is. But it’s not impossible. A thorough investigation into decision-makers’ words and deeds over a period-of-time would help develop a picture that could help us to understand, and perhaps predict, a state’s behaviour. In the same way a horse’s form in its last five races gives us a fairly useful indication of where it might place, Tony Blair’s form and that of his national security community before the Iraq War of 2003 would have enabled most seasoned analysts to predict confidently that Britain would join America in Iraq in 2003. Indeed, being America’s best friend is a principal part of Britain’s strategic culture.
But given that strategic culture was born to inform real-world-decision-making rather than academia, Colin Gray argues that the criticism over definitions “is rather foolish since there is general agreement on the content of the subject and, roughly, how it functions”. That is, he says, “different security communities think and behave somewhat differently about strategic matters”.
To put it more broadly than Gray, every state (or more precisely, every national security community within a state) has a set of assumptions and beliefs regarding the use of force or the setting of goals. These beliefs are shaped by a variety of factors (more on which later) including a state’s politics, geographic setting, and historical experiences. When these beliefs persist, they influence a state’s behaviour. We will come back to how they might change too.
The second problem: one culture to rule them all?
Of course, many horses confound the form guide, which is why Gray warns us that strategic culture “is not the golden key to strategic victory”.[4] Strategic culture is but one of many factors to consider when working out what an adversary might do next and why. Indeed, those other factors may prevent decision-makers from acting on their cultural preferences. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, was right to focus on the importance of understanding oneself and one’s enemies but wrong to claim that it would all but guarantee victory. Historically, there are many examples of the culturally ignorant winning wars and of states not being able to translate effective understanding into effective action.
Strategic culture alone then does not determine a state’s behaviour. There are multiple competing cultures and factors that affect how members of the national security community make decisions. As Jeannie Johnson, a protégé of Colin Gray and ex-CIA notes, “strategic culture is pluralistic”.[5] That is, members of the national security community, who ultimately decide on what the state does, are influenced by competing sub-cultures such as those of their political party, their military Service, or the particular organisation they work within. This, in part, explains why strategic culture is often full of contradictions. British strategic culture for example has championed a maritime approach to defence during some eras and a continental one in others. Both narratives are inherently British but they have ebbed and flowed according to wider domestic and international factors.
To identify the impact of these various cultures takes serious effort. This is why scholars such as Echevarria and Sir Hew Strachan warn that most work on strategic culture is overly simplistic and reverts to stereotypes (of which the author’s previous example on Britain could be accused). They are absolutely right, and thus far the scholarship on strategic culture has yet to do enough to understand the interplay between these various cultures and strategic culture. The amount of work required to do this is perhaps one reason why strategic culture remains on the periphery.
The third problem: art or science?
Perhaps the real problem is that those who are desperate for strategic culture to be more rigorous and precise, treating strategic culture as science not art, risk losing touch with the real world. Alastair Iain Johnston, himself an exponent of strategic culture but one who has done serious intellectual battle with Colin Gray over the years, does not include behaviour in his definition because to do so would undermine his scientific approach.[6] Johnston, like other social scientists, aims to isolate strategic culture as an independent variable and the state’s behaviour as a dependent one and test for its impact on decision-making away from diplomatic, economic, or military influences.
Yet, back in the real-world, behaviour cannot be separated from culture because all behaviour is affected by people who, in turn, are all affected by culture. That is, people are both carriers and constructors of culture. This simple but powerful argument frustrates a scientific approach because it is exceedingly difficult to argue against or prove in practice or theory. Gray accuses those who try to separate out culture from behaviour as committing “the same error as the doctor who sees people have entirely separable bodies and minds”.[7] Those who treat strategic culture as science not art make the mistake of trying to bend the subject to their methodology rather than the other way around.
Pre-empting the naysayers, the author admits that Gray does undermine himself in some of his other work where he attempts to accommodate the causal impact of other material factors (such as technology or finances), claiming (rightly) that strategic culture provides the context that shapes decision-making rather than fully determining it. But if culture is context, then are these material factors operating without context, or, perhaps, are there many contexts? This problem can (just about) be resolved if one views culture as giving meaning to all factors, not just material ones. Strategic culture therefore is the perceptive lens through which the national strategic community views the entire world. Does this create a tautology in that everything matters, and everything is connected as the critics claim? Yes, but in the real-world material factors have no meaning outside of the cultures that condition them: a tautology is inevitable.
The fourth problem: what’s in and what’s out?
Critics argue that the use of different definitions prevents us from drawing generalisable conclusions about the subject as essentially each scholar is talking about different phenomena. For example, instead of Synder’s sum total of ideas or emotional responses, other scholars use assumptions, habits, customs, beliefs, identities, geography, history, civil-military relations or technology as the key factors to investigate a state’s strategic culture. As there is not an agreed upon set of factors different people can, and do, pick and choose — and then couch their outputs as strategic culture. Arguably the focus then switches from strategic culture to the factors being used to investigate it.
One cannot hide that this is a genuine problem… But despite it — and here the author may be missing the point — shouldn’t we focus more on the outputs rather than the inputs? For example, several seminal papers on Britain’s strategic culture make use of different factors and sources.[8] What’s revealing is how these varied methods result in a similar view of what Britain’s strategic culture is and how it explains her behaviour. These different inputs arguably then give added credibility to the concept of strategic culture when the outputs are similar. Using different factors or methods to understand an enemy’s potential courses of actions is something most intelligence officers would be entirely comfortable with. And even when the outcomes of such analysis are different, a range of opinion provides deeper understanding to aid decision-making.
Can we have too many sources though? As critics argue, if strategic culture contains everything then it risks explaining nothing. Yet my tutor’s response to how many case studies I should use for my dissertation is indicative: generally, more is better than less. Perhaps many critics miss the point when they argue for a more frugal and structured approach. Strategic culture is useful precisely because it does consider many different sources unlike its arch-rival neorealism. It appears imperative for research to consider a full range of factors that shape the culture of a state’s strategic community. Where we draw the line on those factors is a matter of personal judgement, but isn’t everything? The purpose of strategic culture is to understand real world issues using theory as a supportive handmaiden, not as our master.
The fifth problem: what’s unique about strategic culture?
The danger of course is that strategic culture is whatever we want it to be whenever we want it to be that. And even military analysts have limited time with which to produce an understanding of an adversary. Therefore, one might have to reduce the number of sources to establish a strategic culture. But reduce to what? Whilst there are differences amongst scholars, it does appear that a state’s geographic setting and historical experiences are the two most commonly agreed factors.
Yet these factors invite further criticism still. Echevarria claims that many states, particularly western ones, have shared many historical experiences and continue to share political and strategic ideas and habits; he admits that it is reasonable to think that Russians, Americans, and Chinese think differently about strategy but the search for uniqueness goes too far. Let us concede that Echevarria is right. There is no doubt that the boundaries between some cultures are rarely clear. The continued development of an EU strategic culture is a case in point. And inevitably as one draws on fewer sources there may be increasing similarities between states or actors.
Yet, even here, whilst historical experiences may be similar the interpretation of those experiences, or their impact, are often quite different. France and Britain, two countries of similar economic and military might, shared the ignominious experience of Suez in 1956 but reacted very differently subsequently to it. The former sought to become more independent, and the latter sought a closer alliance with the US. Here strategic culture can help explain why this occurred although as has been pointed out earlier, just not on its own.
Echevarria also asks when does a “cultural actor” become Russian, American, or Chinese in “their thoughts and habits”.[9] He argues that Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Hans Morgenthau were all hugely influential on American foreign policy but were born, grew up, and educated elsewhere. There is no doubt that in some instances, and not necessarily in just authoritarian states, individuals are able to exert demonstrable change on cultures. However, Echevarria’s example actually provides evidence for strategic culture and how it works — these individuals became part of a wider national strategic community whose culture shaped and constrained their ideas and behaviour, as much as vice-versa: carriers and constructors.
An obvious example of the effect of strategic culture is not in the differences in Barrack Obama and Donald Trump but the similarities in their foreign policy approaches (although of course other factors contributed towards this). Many Americans believe this is the product of some sinister and mysterious ‘deep state’. But this ‘deep state’ is actually no more than a culture that has become permanent over time and which is sustained by career bureaucrats within the national security community.
And there can be no doubt that a state’s geography coupled to its historical experiences also shapes and cements its strategic culture. As an island-state, Britain has rarely been invaded since 1066 which has seen a strategic culture develop where her leaders regularly use force in foreign lands to achieve political goals. Britain has not experienced a German soldier patrolling on her streets and does not have to worry about the Russians crossing the plains. Thus, it acts with greater impunity. The ‘facts’ of geography are perhaps the most pervasive in shaping a state’s strategic culture. The layperson understands this inherently which is why books such as Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics and The Revenge of Geography are so popular.
The final problem: continuity and change?
Hew Strachan criticises proponents of strategic culture for focusing on continuity and the impossibility of change.[10] He is right. And wrong. Strategic culture scholars do believe that to be cultural requires a degree of permanence and that change is largely slow and incremental. But they readily admit that rapid change is possible too. And normally in four ways: via a strategic shock (Germany upon defeat in WW2), through wholesale change of a government (Burma in the late ‘80s), by an individual of considerable personality or authority (Putin), or technological advances.
Britain’s island-status and dominant Navy had for centuries protected her from invasion, generating a belief that she was invulnerable. The advent of air power in WW1 and atomic weapons in WW2 were two technological changes that shocked that belief to its core — and changed her strategic culture. Britain felt more vulnerable than her Continental allies as her population was concentrated in a much smaller area that could be struck by Russian nukes. Technology, at that time, had made geography seemingly less relevant. Whether true or not, it led to a demonstrable change in culture and a new belief in deterrence.
A little can go a long way
Strategic culture then suffers from many of the same problems that other theories do. Pulling together strategy and culture was always going to be fraught with dangers. Understanding a state’s strategic culture is hugely important to understanding why states act the way they do. Whilst it is not a panacea to solving all our ills, a little theory can go a long way. There is no doubt that a better understanding of our adversaries’ strategic cultures will bring us a step closer to achieving our policy goals. We should keep in the front of our minds Bernard Brodie’s great words…and warning:
“good strategy presumes good anthropology and sociology. Some of the greatest military blunders of all time have resulted from juvenile evaluations in this department”.[11]
[1] Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Colin Gray and the paradox of strategic culture: Critical but unknowable,” Comparative Strategy 40, no.2 (2021): 174–178.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Colin S. Gray, “Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes Back,” Review of International Studies 25, no. 1 (January 1999): 49–69.
[5] Jeannie L. Johnson, “Strategic culture in service of strategy: The founding paradigm of Colin S. Gray,” Comparative Strategy 40, no. 2 (2021): 179–184.
[6] See Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking about Strategic Culture,” International Security 19, no.4 (2005): 32–64.
[7] Colin Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 130.
[8] Google British strategic culture and either Alister Miskimmon, Paul Cornish, or Alan Macmillan to access their papers and compare their inputs and outputs.
[9] Echevarria II, “Colin Gray and the paradox of strategic culture,” 176.
[10] Hew Strachan, The direction of war: contemporary strategy in historical perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 136–150.
[11] Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (London: Cassell, 1974), 332.
The author is an Infantry officer in the British Army with significant experience across Other Government Departments. He has seen first-hand the impact of Britain’s strategic culture on key decision-making.
This BLOG is an academic study conducted as part of the KCL Master by Research programme on the Advanced Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. The views expressed are those of the author; they do not constitute the opinion of, or a representation by the British Army or the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom
