COMPARATIVE STRATEGIC CULTURE SYLLABUS

This syllabus is intended to introduce the concept of strategic culture to upper division undergraduates seeking to deepen their understanding of international relations and security studies, and broaden their theoretical and methodological tool sets. Our objective is to provide the instructor with theoretical background on the concept of strategic culture as well as a framework for comparing case studies in this field. We do this through the use of comparative cases that examine a common international security phenomenon: a state’s (and one non-state actor) decisions to acquire, proliferate, or use a weapon of mass destruction. Our purpose is to advance strategic culture analysis as a tool for understanding (and even forecasting) the foreign policy of other actors and of constructing successful foreign policy of our own. Practical applications of strategic culture include: • better understanding of the foreign lenses through which our policy moves will be viewed • more effective deterrence, because we understand what the other culture values and can better leverage their cost/benefit ratio • stronger cooperative relationships with allies • increased accuracy in the interpretation of intelligence collected abroad • insight that will allow for the creation of counter-narrative strategies aimed at weakening an adversary’s propaganda campaign • more successful assimilation of immigrants • a stronger understanding of the repercussions of our foreign policy moves • illumination of our own cultural values • enhancement of predictive/forecasting capabilit