The Geographic Origins of Strategic Culture

Strategic culture is a concept that characterizes the way a security community thinks about the use of force or the threat of the use of force. It is constantly evolving, but only changes slowly as it is tethered to geography and history. Strategic culture allows the realists to hone his or her skills even more precisely than material variables allow for as beliefs and habits of mind are important variables in decision making at the top levels, but are difficult to quantify. For practitioners of strategy the concept of strategic culture is a helpful tool in understanding what kinds of forces an opponent will deploy and how they will be used in war. Before, however, we can use strategic culture to help us prepare strategies we must first develop a deep understanding of where it comes from then we should be able to understand better our opponents and eventually perhaps even ourselves.