Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism

Lantis, Jeffrey S.

doi:10.1057/9780230618305_3

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…The idea that culture has a defining impact on how a particular country goes to war can be found in sources from Sun Tzu to Thucydides to Weber to Clausewitz, right up to Russell Weigley's The American Way of Warfare (Lantis 2009). This section focuses on how the different strands of strategic culture theory have incorporated different ideas of how culture influences behaviour, evolving into a distinct understanding of how and why states use force internationally.…”

Section: Strategic Culture Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

Libben

2017

Canadian Foreign Policy Journal

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AcknowledgementsFirst and foremost, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my parents, whose example inspired me to start a doctorate in the first place and without whose support I would not have been able to complete this thesis. To my mother, who read the first draft and the last draft, and who provided invaluable advice and suggestions every step of the way. To my father, who has been an academic and intellectual role model throughout my life, and provides a constant reminder to me to never stop being curious. To my sister, who has been a source both of academic inspiration and commiseration, and who helped me see the light at the end of the Ph.D.tunnel when things seemed dark. To my supervisors, Dr. Claire Turenne-Sjolander and Dr. Miguel de Larrinaga, who supported my ideas from the start and who helped me navigate my way to a final draft. To my friend Doug, who has always been there to listen to my triumphs and defeats, and who has always been willing to talk about the big questions with me. To all my friends, who I have relied on time and again to replenish my energy and regain my perspective.To my wife, who helped me reach the end of this thesis in ways big and small, supporting me with her food, her advice, her love, and her very existence. And to my dog Lyla, who did her best to prevent me from writing this thesis while at the same time reminding me that sometimes it's important to stop writing, get up, and go for a walk.iii Tables Table 1: Summary of the three generations of strategic culture Table 2: Strategic norms concerning the legitimate ends and means of defence policy Table 3: The Peacekeeping Sweet Spot Table 4: Breakdown of scalable strategic norms Table 5: Member States with more than 1,000 peacekeeping troops, 1990-2015 Table 6 With 16 ongoing peacekeeping operations currently deploying almost 100,000 troops, United Nations peacekeeping is the largest single source of multilateral military intervention in conflict zones. Because UN peacekeeping is entirely dependent on voluntary contributions from Member States, there a pressing need to better understand why nations contribute peacekeeping troops in the first place. Individual national rationales for peacekeeping contribution vary significantly, and incentives may include regional hegemonic aspirations, positive economic benefits from peacekeeping, desiring a seat at the Security Council, or a combination of any number of incentives. This has made it difficult to provide a generalized explanation about why states provide peacekeepers. This thesis proposes a model for understanding the peacekeeping contribution issue under the lens of strategic culture. The strategic culture approach focuses on elite beliefs about the objectives of the use of force, with national factors such a geography, history, domestic politics, and bureaucracy forming into cohesive and competing norms about the purpose of the military. Drawing on the fourth generation of strategic culture literature, this dissertation argues that strategic culture serves as an...

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Section: Strategic Culture Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

Libben

2017

Canadian Foreign Policy Journal

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“…11 Lantis offers an overview of the evolution of the theory of strategic culture through several generations of scholarship, including the constructivist understanding of the role of culture in shaping national security policy. 12 The constructivist research program devotes particular attention to identity formation, with connections to organizational process, history, tradition, and culture. Lantis quotes Hudson who argues that "constructivism views culture as an evolving system of shared meaning that governs perceptions, communications, and actions.…”

Section: Conceptual Explorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Strategic Culture of Foreign and Security Policymaking: Examining the Southern African Development Community

Nieuwkerk

2014

African Security

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This article explores the effects of strategic culture on the parameters of the decision making elite in the Southern African Development Community. By examining the contemporary southern African foreign and security decision making track record, it also addresses the question of convergence. The article examines the theoretical and conceptual state of research relating to strategic culture and adopts a constructivist understanding of the concept. Before applying it to the Southern African Development Community case, it examines the context of African decision making by highlighting a range of issues that act to constrain choices, and it explains the Southern African Development Community decision making structures and examines the state of research relating to Southern African Development Community members' foreign policy and national security policy behavior. The summary offers an outline of a southern African strategic culture. It finds that despite signs of extensive convergence, in reality, Southern African Development Community exercises partial convergence, frequent but mostly unsystematic interaction characterized by partially compatible interests.

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“…39 It is in that sense that Lantis characterizes strategic cultures as a 'negotiated reality' among elites. 40 As noted above, devaluing is a process rather than an end state and as such quantification of value is subjective. This has important methodological implications for how one might 'measure' value in order to detect devaluation.…”

Section: Knowing Nuclear Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons

Ritchie¹

2013

Contemporary Security Policy

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Strategic Culture: From Clausewitz to Constructivism

Cited by 25 publications

References 61 publications

Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

The Strategic Culture of Foreign and Security Policymaking: Examining the Southern African Development Community

Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons

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