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The Impact of Strategic Culture on a Nation's Grand Strategy 1 Reconceptualising Strategic Culture as a Focal Point: The Impact of Strategic Culture on a Nation’s Grand Strategy Sidharth Kaushal Thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in fulfilment of the requirements of the PhD 2 I, Sidharth Kaushal, certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 92,658 words Signed, Sidharth Kaushal. Doctoral Candidate, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science 3 Reconceptualising Strategic Culture as a Focal Point: The Impact of Strategic Culture on a State’s Grand Strategy Abstract: This thesis proposes to remedy some of the theoretical lacunae surrounding the topic of strategic culture by reconceptualising it in a way that is compatible with existing expected utility models of executive choice. Current theorising regarding strategic culture has been paralysed by an ongoing debate between the first and third generations of strategic culture theorists and by the persistent inability of scholars to provide a predictive framework based on the concept - meaning that it is unable to operate as anything other than a residual variable. The hypothesis of this thesis is that conceptualising strategic culture using Thomas Schelling’s concept of a focal point permits us to sidestep some of the theoretical debates that have divided rationalists and theorists of strategic culture by allowing culture to be grafted on to a rational actor model of executive choice in a way that is progressive rather than degenerative. In order to test this theory, the thesis develops and subsequently tests the idea of a liberal strategic culture, utilising both the congruence method and within case process tracing to demonstrate the external validity of the theory being developed. The cases chosen span American administrations from the Cold War to the contemporary era and demonstrate the utility of a re conceptualised model of strategic culture across a range of geopolitical and domestic contexts. 4 Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Conceptualising Strategic 1 Culture Chapter 2 - Strategies of Liberal 41 Primacy - The Grand Strategy of the George. W. Bush Administration C 73 CChapter 3 - Strategies of Preclusive Defence - The Grand Strategy of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations - The Grand Strategy of the Reagan Administration C Chapter 4 - Devolved Hegemony 129 --- The Grand Strategy of the Nixon/Ford Administrations --- The Grand Strategy of the Eisenhower Administration - - S Strategies of Hollow Expansion 1 9 2 - - The Grand Strategy of the Clinton Administration - - The Grand Strategy of the Obama Administration Epilogue 254 Conclusions 256 5 List of Figures and Tables Table I - Focal Points Within a liberal Strategic Culture 29 Table 2 - Policy Equilibria Within a Liberal Strategic Culture 30 Table 3 - Predictive Framework 34 Table 4 - Predictive Accuracy of my Model 264 1 Chapter I Theory of Strategic Culture - Reconceptualising Strategic Culture Bernard Brodie's proclamation that good strategy “presumes good anthropology and good sociology” (Brodie,1960,128) has served as something of a rallying cry for a veritable cottage industry of scholars in international relations and security studies who declare that dominant rational actor models in strategic studies utterly ignore the concept of “strategic culture”. Yet, in large measure, the malaise of strategic culture as a paradigm remains self- inflicted as the concept is heavily under-theorised. The failure to frame the interaction of culture with other factors such as the material strength of a nation, has resulted in strategic culture being viewed less as a predictive tool than as a cautionary device that might alert theorists and practitioners to the limits of rationality. Furthermore, the study of strategic culture has been paralysed by an ongoing debate between what A.I Johnston dubs the three generations of strategic cultural thought. While scholars of the first-generation regard culture as a context within which strategic choice occurs, theorists of the third generation (including Johnston himself) perceive culture as an independent variable which might allow for the theory to be falsified within the framework of a positivist epistemology. In my view, both schools contain severe shortcomings. Consequently, the first part of this chapter will establish the limitations of existing theories of strategic culture. The central finding of this segment is that existing theories of strategic culture are either unfalsifiable or highly overdetermined. Crucially, the ontological assumptions of both theories render them incompatible with rational actor models - a decisive shortcoming, because the work does not add cumulatively to existing literature and because both schools concede that strategic culture does interact with rationality to produce outcomes. Accordingly, the research problem that forms the centrepiece of this thesis is to formulate a concept of strategic culture consistent with rational actor models of strategic choice. 2 The second part of this chapter will outline my formulation of strategic culture. Borrowing from the theory of cultural action developed by A. Swidler, I define culture as a body of beliefs, institutions and practices which comprise a means of control and communication within a security community comprised of rational actors. This framework is consistent with the assumptions of rational actor theorist T. Schelling who affirms that within the context of a bargaining game between two rational actors at the domestic level, culture sets the focal points that allow interdependent actors to coordinate a solution to the game. Unlike existing works, my ontological assumptions are firmly situated within the rational actor framework and conceptualise culture as an intervening variable. Using the impact of strategic culture upon a nation’s grand strategy as my central topic, I identify two research objectives: 1) To demonstrate that strategic culture can be formulated as a series of focal principles utilized by rational actors within the context of domestic bargaining over the contours of grand strategy. 2) To develop and test a predictive model that integrates my theory of strategic culture as a focal point with existing rational actor models which posit how states' executives formulate grand strategy in response to combinations of systemic pressure and domestic partisan preference. The second objective serves two purposes. First, the success of the predictive model derived from my conception of strategic culture serves as what A. Bennett and A. George dub a proxy hypothesis – a derivative hypothesis, which, if confirmed, would then corroborate a primary hypothesis validating my inference of strategic culture functioning as a focal point (Bennett, George,2005,18). Secondly, it demonstrates the utility of this conceptualisation in the integration of strategic culture with existing models of strategic choice to increase their predictive capacity. 3 The third segment of this chapter will lay out my conception of grand strategy. Following this, the chapter will outline my predictive framework and identify the methodology that might be used to study and falsify my hypothesis. Existing Literature Existing literature on the impact of strategic culture upon grand strategic choice is largely centred around the debate between the first and third generations of strategic cultural thought1. The third generation of strategic cultural theorists, represented by A.I Johnston, assesses culture as an independent variable consisting of a “system of symbols” which comprise two sets of assumptions – that is: i) a first set about international order, the nature of adversaries and the use of force and ii) a second set regarding the efficacy of various strategic tools (Johnston,1996,218). Examining Chinese strategic behaviour from the Ming to Maoist eras, Johnston is able to treat strategic culture as an independent variable which can be correlated with a country’s patterns of strategic behaviour (Johnston,1994,19-35). A number of flaws exist with this theoretical framework, however. Primarily, in order to treat strategic culture as an independent variable, Johnston is forced to formulate culture as static and change resistant, despite the enormous vicissitudes of Chinese history. The treatment of agents as passive subjects of culture poses a second problem for Johnston’s theory. Cultural anthropologists like C. Geertz stress an interaction between culture and human agency - with humans utilising specific symbols and meanings from their cultural repertoire - making this conception untenable (Geertz,1977,40- 90). The third generation’s separation of culture from practice has also been critiqued by C. Gray and L. Sondhaus as an unsubstantiated separation within modern sociology (Gray,1999,180)
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