Strategic Culture Theory Applied on South Asia with Deterrence
As pointed out by (A.I., 1995) and (J.L. Johnson, 2009) strategic culture is the sum of two concepts culture and strategy- whose definition is the necessary first step in the understanding of strategic culture. Retrieving the typology conceived by Hudson culture can be a shared system meaning that defined the way in which a country interpret the world a collection of value preferences that contributes to defined the ends of a country security policy for action that relates ends and means. “Strategic” on its part is anything related to the advancement of nations objectives (Furlan, 2017). Strategic culture is core of strategy or strategic thought and culture. (Johnson, 2009) Culture is one of the more difficult terms to define. In combination of these two ideas into one concept the benefit and drawback of each of its root elements will come into play. (Echevarria, 2017)
What is Culture
In the article of (Rodhan, 2015) culture or cultures comprised on the transmitted of attitudes, ideas, habits, traditions and methods of operation preferred that are more or less specific to a particular geography based on security community that has had a unique historical experience (Gray, 1999) .
In article of (Miller, 2015 ) culture consists of share decision rules, standard operating procedures and decision routines that imposed on a degree of order on individual group and their relationship to their environment, social and organizational (Johnston, 1995).
In the article of (Furlan, 2017) culture is historically transmitted the set of pattern and the symbols a system of inherited expressed as a symbolic forms by means of which man communicate and developed their knowledge and attitude towards their life (Geertz, 1973) .
Strategic Culture
The article of (Pirani, 2016) definition of strategy has been debated for years and it tends to focus on the means that an actor uses to achieved some traditional strategic thought the focuses on military matters. (Greathouse, 2010)
In the article of (Echevarria, 2017) strategic culture defined as focuses on ideology, history, interests, high politics and geography. According to Snyder strategic culture is defined as the sum of total ideas, emotional responses, and set or patterns of habitual behavior that members of a national community have acquired through instruction and shared with each other with regards to nuclear strategy (Snyder, 1977).
In the (Tellis, 2017) article Snyder formulate the strategic culture concept as an independent variable that affects the dependent variable, for example how the Soviets viewed the use of force. It served as an input into the process affects the outcome about views on the use of force. (Greathouse, 2010)
In the article of (Furlan, 2017) defined Edward and Cornish argued that strategic culture is an institution of confidence and processes to managed and imposed the legitimate and effective policies regarding military forces (Cornish, 2005).
Johnston explained that integrate the system symbol which acts to establish the long lasting grand strategic likes by formulates the concept of the role of military force in interstate and political affairs (Johnston, 1995). Johnston definition is based on the work of Geertz and other classic studies which are focused on how cultures affect the decision makers within the system. (Echevarria, 2017)
In the article of (Echevarria, 2017) Longhurst defined that the strategic culture is practices, attitudes and beliefs regarding the uses of force by the collective and gradually arising over the time through the unique historical process. (Longhurst, 2004. ) In the article of Pietro Pirani also mentioned the work on the strategic culture is practice over time is tending to change according to an era although it is not a permanent feature. (Pirani, 2016)
The work of (Miller, 2015 ) mentioned the definition of strategic culture is used as norms, ideas, sets and patterns of behavior which are based on long lasting strategic practices about the role of military force which shape the security and defense goals. (Greathouse C. B., 2008 )
Framework of Studying Strategic Culture
The complexity involved with examining strategic culture has been laid out throughout the study of (Tellis, 2017). He mentioned the complexity of strategic culture research, first need to focus on the strategic cultures of actors and then taking those approaches and applied them effectively on the particular situations to determine the level of impact on strategic culture.
To determine the strategic culture of any actor, the basic elements of the concept is given below
(Tellis, 2017)
(1) States geography setting and its influences.
(2) The importance of society and elites towards the use of force.
(3) Historical background of the actor and its point of views on the use of force.
(4) Significant shocks or crisis to the actor that may have changed and effect its sets of pattern.
Generations
The debate on the development of strategic culture has l been largely shaped by Colin Gray and Alastair Iain Johnston and their work and approaches to the concept of strategic culture (Furlan, 2017). Marta Furlan explained that the study of strategic culture is concerned she give the example of (Johnston, 1995) has proposed a partition scholarship that identifies three distinct generations.
The first generation started in the 1970s when the paradigm “strategic culture” was coined and the first truly scientific works on the link between culture and strategic behavior appeared. In particular, those early studies were mainly focused on the behavior of the two super-powers in the field of nuclear strategy. At this respect major contribution came from Snyder the Soviet Strategic Culture, implications for Nuclear Option (1977) that applied strategic culture to explain the Soviet nuclear doctrine and the American one. (Echevarria, 2017)
After a decline in the studies of strategic culture due to the criticism to which the notion was subject mainly because of the tautology created by its incapacity to the second generation emerged in ate 1980s with Luckham and Klein (Furlan, 2017). The most defining characteristics of the studies of this period are that they tried to avoid the determinist affirmations of the first generation;
They compared several approaches and tested empirically hypotheses
Then they moved from a similar notion of culture meant as the element that presents decision-makers with different options discriminate between the ideational dimension of culture and observed behaviors. (Rodhan, 2015)
The third generation for its part began in the 1990s as a response to the need for a more rigorous conceptualization and methodology that had emerged from the shortcomings of the previous generations. The aim was two-fold: develop a more rigorous concept of strategic culture and devise a research strategy capable of measuring how strategic culture actually impacts strategic choices. (Furlan, 2017)
The present aims of the studies of the strategic culture to solve the gaps among all the previous generation by introducing an alternative approach known as four generation strategic culture research which is based on the nature of security. . (Libel, 2016)
