Strategic Culture: How the West Coerces

In analogy with political culture, strategic culture is defined as traditions, values, attitudes, patterns of behavior, habits, symbols, achievements, and ways of solving problems with respect to the use of force. As strategic culture is expressed through doctrine, I will analyze the evolution of military doctrine since the end of the Second World War. Doctrine defines the nature and the characteristics of current and future military operations, preparations for those operations in peace time, and the methods for successfully completing military operations in times of conflict. A large part of doctrine is based on military experience gained during past operations. Doctrine is codified in “how to fight” manuals, it is general in nature, and reflects the mind-set of modern soldiers. It describes the fundamentals, principles, and preconditions for military operations at different levels. This part of the study primarily deals with the strategic and operational levels. I argue that for decades, probably for centuries, doctrine has been founded on some clearly identifiable principles, which make them perfectly suitable for conventional warfare. Therefore, the question of whether these doctrines are applicable to modern challenges as well becomes relevant. If this is not the case, the efficacy of coercion is likely to diminish. Given the differences in political and, consequently, strategic culture, most of the innovative doctrinal thinking took place in the United States. Due to the differences in political and strategic cultures, Europeans – except for the British, the French and, to a lesser extent, the Germans – contributed very little to the development of doctrine. Some member states reluctantly accepted NATO doctrine, which was derived from American documents, but they were unwilling to use them as a basis for procurement. For NATO, interoperability has been an enduring problem, reinforced by the differences in strategic culture on both sides of the Atlantic.