The role of the strategic culture in iran‘s nuclear behaviour

In this paper author analyzes what role does the Strategic culture play in the Iran‘s nuclear behaviour. Four years of secret and public talks between the US and Iran in 2015 reached a score - a nuclear agreement that Iran has committed itself to stop developing its nuclear program in exchange for Western countries lifting the sanctions. Hence the paradox is that while Iran signed a nuclear agreement, it is believed that it will not stop its nuclear ambitions, because he had been developing nuclear weapon for a long time even when he was exposed to sanctions. So what are the reasons for distrusting the nuclear agreement, and what to expect in the future? The ultimate aim of this paper is to find out whether and how nuclear weapons development needs are recorded in the Iran‘s strategic culture. Therefore, the paper is guided by two tasks that are essential in reaching the ultimate aim. The first task of the paper is to review the theory of Strategic culture and the third wave of it, which focuses more on specific variables and state behaviour. On behalf of this theory it is explained that Strategic culture influences the behaviour of the state strategy by influencing the decision-makers through a common historical experience, symbols and norms of the system, the social environment and the perception of the military threat. The theoretical part also detailed overview of the strategic culture and the ratio of nuclear weapons. Strategic culture allows us to understand the motives of different cultures in accepting or declining the international norms of nuclear weapons. It also allows us to look at the motivation behind the nuclear weapon, at the interests, which may be misinterpreted when looked upon without the full understanding of the strategic culture of the state in question. The second part of the study examines four key security and defense policy-related variables that shape strategic culture: a) the level of ambition in international security policy; b) the scope of action for the executive in decision-making; c) foreign policy orientation d) the willingness to use military force. Defensive propositions presented in the introduction predicts that Iran's Strategic culture has encoded nuclear behaviour determining elements; these strategic culture elements are within the Iranian security and defense policy. Enough examples can be found, which grounds the assumptions that these two defensive propositions can be proven. Since Iran's security strategy is not publicly accessible this study allows to understand Iran's defense and security strategy, and to predict the state’s decisions. It can be concluded that, although now it is more useful for Iran to stop nuclear program, this pause will be a fact as long as Iran sees its great benefits for itself. The nuclear deal does not change Iran’s Strategic culture, so we can expect that there is a possibility that Iran will be continuing nuclear weapons development program in the future. Theoretical part of this paper increases the understanding of the strategic importance of culture as part of Security Studies, which explains the behaviour of the state’s nuclear policy issues. Variables presented by the study make room for the deeper analysis of the Iranian strategic culture which is based not only on the historical perspective, but also on specific events, symbols and threats