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Policy, Behavior, and Weapons of Mass
Destruction in the Crucible of Strategic Culture:
An Initial Framework for Comparative Analysis
Dr. Kerry M. Kartchner
Chief, Division of Strategy and Policy Studies
Advanced Systems and Concepts Office
Advanced Systems and Concepts Office
3-Apr-06
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Overview
• Revisiting Strategic Culture as an Analytical Tool for
Threat Assessment
 Relevance
 Methodology
• Developing a Comparative Framework for Identifying,
Evaluating, and Assessing Selected Strategic
Cultures
• The Link between Strategic Culture and Weapons
of Mass Destruction
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Why study “strategic culture”?
1) Understanding strategic culture is vital to effectively implementing
and safeguarding U.S. national security and foreign policy.
 Hostility to U.S. national security goals and policies is undermining U.S.
power, influence, and strategic alliances.
 Much of this hostility is driven by a lack of understanding of the cultural
and regional context for U.S. policy.
-- 2004 Defense Science Board Study on Strategic Communications.
2) It is important to “know thine enemy” – better assess new and
emerging threats.
3) But, it is also important to know our friends and allies, and the
regional context for U.S. national security policy.
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Overview of ASCO’s
Comparative Strategic Cultures Project
(2005) Phase I Objectives:
 Review status of scholarship in the field.
 Identify any critical outstanding methodology issues.
 Assess some preliminary case studies (China, Pakistan, India)
 Validate the utility of “comparative strategic cultures” for gaining
insights into policy, behavior, and incentives for acquiring, using, or
proliferating weapons of mass destruction.
(2006) Phase II Objectives:
 Develop a framework for comparative analysis.
 Select specific case studies with relevance to issues of WMD.
 Derive some policy-relevant insights for WMD and strategic culture.
 Craft a curriculum for use in military and civilian institutes of higher
learning.
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Methodology Issues
1)
There is no commonly accepted definition of “strategic culture.”
Solution: Develop provisional definitions and a common analytical framework.
2)
Scholars disagree on the intellectual boundaries of “strategic culture” and how
it relates analytically to other theories/paradigms (eg., realism, constructivism,
etc.)
Solution: Determine and assess the geo- and socio-political boundaries of those
strategic cultures most relevant to deterrence and non-proliferation of WMD.
3)
There are debates about the sources of strategic culture and rate of
transformation within selected strategic cultures.
Solution: Track change with respect to specific WMD-related events.
4)
There are obstacles to communication between the social science and the
policy communities.
Solution: Agree on a provisional theoretical framework for applying social sciences to
specific issues of national security.
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Selected Case Studies
1. The United States
6.
Pakistan
2. Israel
7.
India
3. Iran
8.
China
4. North Korea
9.
Russia
5. Syria
10. Non-State Actors
Criteria for selection: Relevance to WMD, researchability,
baseline cases, curriculum development, and salience for
addressing methodology issues.
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Beyond the Case Studies
•
Emerging strategic cultures (including Japan)
•
Strategic culture and non-state actors
•
Strategic culture and WMD policies and issues
•
The future of strategic culture
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Defining “Strategic Culture”
• For purposes of this project, “strategic culture” has
been defined as:
“Shared beliefs, assumptions, and modes of
behavior, derived from common experiences and
accepted narratives (both oral and written), that
shape collective identity and relationships to other
groups, and which determine appropriate ends and
means for achieving security objectives.”
• Case study authors are asked to evaluate this
definition against their particular case study, and, if
necessary, propose revisions.
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Key Elements in a Description of the
Selected Strategic Culture
• What does the given strategic culture have to say
about conflict and human nature?
• What does the given strategic culture say about “the
enemy”?
• What does the given culture have to say about the
utility of violence, or laws of war?
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Assessing the Importance of Strategic
Culture Relative to Other Factors
• Case study and essay authors are asked to make a
preliminary assessment of the importance of strategic
culture versus other factors, in shaping the group’s:
 External and internal threat perceptions.
 Self-characterization, role and placement of the group within
the overall international context.
 Security policies, including (but not limited to) decisions to
acquire, use, proliferate, or constrain WMD, or to
comply/violate international norms related to WMD.
 Relationships to other groups (e.g., alliances).
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Policy Implications: Strategic Culture
and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Does culture matter?
 When, under what conditions, and to what extent does culture shape
behavior and define values in discernible and measurable ways?
 Which behaviors and values are most subject to cultural influence, or
find their origins most firmly rooted in cultural grounds?
Hypothesis: understanding culture is necessary to successfully:
 Assure allies and friends of U.S. commitment to their security.
 Dissuade states and non-state actors from acquiring WMD.
 Deter states and actors from employing WMD.
 Defeat those states and non-state actors who cannot be deterred from
using WMD.
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Policy Implications, cont’d
• Acquisition of WMD – does strategic culture inform or
determine incentives for acquiring WMD?
• Employment of acquired WMD – does strategic
culture influence decisions to use WMD?
• Proliferation of WMD – does strategic culture
promote or inhibit tendencies to proliferate WMD?
• Adherence to International Regimes and Norms
Associated with WMD – does strategic culture
strengthen or mitigate against international or
domestic norm-adherence behavior?
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When Does Strategic Culture Matter?
According to Michael C. Desch:
1. “Cultural variables may explain the lag between structural
change and alterations in state behavior.”
2. “Cultural variables may account for why some states behave
irrationally and suffer the consequences of failing to adapt to
the constraints of the international system.”
3. “In structurally indeterminate situations, domestic variables
such as culture may have more independent impact.”
- “Culture Versus Structure in Post-9/11 Security Studies,” Strategic Insights, vol. IV,
Issue 10 (October 2005).
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Additional Hypotheses (Policy Relevance)
Strategic Culture is more salient relative to other considerations
(economics, geography, ideology, leadership style), when:
1) There is a strong sense of danger to the group’s existence,
identity, or resources, or when the group believes that it is at a
critical disadvantage to other groups.
2) There is a strong “messiah complex,” or sense of mission,
associated with the group’s identity, and its relationship to other
groups.
3) There is a pre-existing strong cultural basis for group identity.
4) The group’s leadership frequently resorts to citing cultural symbols
in support of its national security aspirations and programs.
5) There is a high degree of homogeneity within the group that is
centered on “shared narratives.”
6) Historical experiences strongly predispose the group to perceive
threats and to respond with violent (military) means.
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WMD and Strategic Culture:
Some Propositions
•
Scriptural justification: What if significant views were emerging among the
“keepers of the culture” that using nuclear weapons could be justified by the
culture’s shared oral/written “narrative”?
•
Fatalistic assumptions: What if the culture assumed that a wider conflict with
other civilizations was inevitable? What if some even believed that such a
conflict should be instigated, and that the instigating culture would even emerge
from it better off?
•
Nuclear naiveté: What if the culture’s leaders did not appreciate how profoundly
destructive a nuclear war would be?
•
Demonization of threat: What if the culture believed its principal enemy was
“the Great Satan” and deserved to be annihilated?
•
Messianic status: What if the culture’s shared narrative included a view that it
was the “chosen” people of God, that God was on its side, that God justified its
policies, that God would help it vanquish or punish its enemies?
= Absence of traditional normative constraints on using nuclear weapons.
= Weakening or failure of the “presumption of non-use.”
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Concluding Phase II
• Workshop for case study and essay authors (and other
interested scholars) to be held in Park City, Utah on 4-5 May
2006.
 Proposed framework will be presented and discussed.
 Preliminary case study efforts will be reviewed.
• Final workshop to be held at Reading University in the United
Kingdom, 6-8 August 2006.
 Results of case studies and essays to be presented for validation
by an international audience of scholars and experts.
• A curriculum on “Comparative Strategic Culture” will be ready for
use in classrooms beginning Fall 2006.
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ASCO Project POCs
•
Dr. Kerry M. Kartchner
 Tel: 703-767-5713
 Email: [email protected]
•
Ms. Jennifer Perry
 Tel: 703-767-5703
 Email: [email protected]
•
Mr. Mike Urena
 Tel: 703-767-5715
 Email: [email protected]
Advanced Systems and Concepts Office
3-Apr-06
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