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S Cluture

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29 views2 pages

S Cluture

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sahibainayat
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Soviet deterrence policy and concluded that US analysts failed to predict Soviet reactions.

This
happened because they took for granted the fact that the Soviets would react the same way as the
Americans would do in certain cases. However, policy outcomes proved that this kind of ‘behavioural
prediction’ on behalf of US scientists (based on rational-actor paradigms and game theoretical
modelling in analysing superpower relations) proved to be wrong. As a result of this failure to predict
reactions, a number of scholars came to the conclusion that each country had its own way to interpret,
analyse and react to international events. This brought the question of a state/national culture back to
the agenda and created a new wave of literature which focused on the development of a new tool of
analysis, notably that of strategic culture.
The concept of strategic culture is not a new one. In the past it has been applied in various ways and to
a range of countries (e.g. Japan, Germany), regions (e.g. Scandinavia, Pacific Ocean) and security
institutions (e.g. NATO) in order to examine the main aspects of their security policies. It has been the
case that by applying the notion of strategic culture to certain case studies scholars try to explain
continuity and change in national security policies. In addition, academics involved in the study of
strategic culture attempt to create a framework which can give answers as to why certain policy options
(and not others) are pursued by states.
• Jack Snyder ‘the sum of ideas, conditioned emotional responses, and patterns of habitual
behaviour that members of a national strategic community share with regard to nuclear
strategy’
• Iain Johnston argues ‘Different states have different predominant strategic preferences that
are rooted in the early or formative experiences of the state, and are influenced to some
degree, by the philosophical, political, cultural and cognitive characteristics of the state
and its elites.’
• Colin Gray “the persisting (though not eternal) socially transmitted ideas, attitudes,
traditions, habits of mind, and preferred methods of operation that are more or less
specific to a particularly geographically based security community that has had a
necessarily unique historical experience’.
Gray also suggests that: ‘Strategic culture is a toll which denotes the emotional and
attitudinal environment within which the defence community operates. Ideas about war
and strategy are influenced by physical and political geography-some strategic cultures
plainly have, for example, a maritime or a continental tilt – by political or religious
ideology, and by familiarity with, and preference for, particular military technologies.
Strategic culture is the world of mind, feeling and habit of behaviour.
Pakistan remains a staunchly revisionist state that both continues to assert territorial equities in
Kashmir and seeks to resist India’s rise in the international system. Its revisionism motivated it to start
wars in 1947–48, 1965, and 1999, all of which it failed to win, as well as to sustain a proxy war in
Kashmir, the most recent campaign of which began in 1989. Pakistan has adopted several strategies to
manage its security environment, including ideological tools, the pursuit of strategic depth in
Afghanistan, and the use of proxy fighters under its expanding nuclear umbrella. Pakistan continues to
pursue these strategies even though they are very unlikely to succeed and have imposed a high cost on
the state. Much of its behavior, however, can be explained by the strategic culture of the Pakistan Army.
This culture is characterized by four beliefs:

(1) that Pakistan is an insecure and incomplete state,


(2) that Afghanistan is a source of instability,
(3) that India rejects the two-nation theory and seeks to dominate or destroy Pakistan, and
(4) that India is a regional hegemon that must be resisted. The Pakistan Army controls most
levers of power with respect to national security and foreign policy, as well as domestic policies
that influence these domains. Moreover, this strategic culture is enduring and unlikely to change,
as will be demonstrated by a study of Pakistani military publications.

Elements of Pakistani Strategic Culture


Opposition to Indian Hegemony
Primacy of Defense
Nuclear Deterrence
Self Help and External Assistance
Stability on Western Border
Islamic Cause

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