United States Strategic Culture
Abstract
The notion that there is a connection between a society and its strategic culture has a long and distinguished pedigree. In his history of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides records that the Spartan king Archidamus and the Athenian strategos Pericles each linked the capabilities of their military to the constitution of their state. Writing more than 2,400 years later, Julian Corbett drew a distinction between the German or "continental" and British or "maritime" schools of strategic thought, with the former focusing on war between land powers and the latter on a conflict between a sea power and a land power. A nation's strategic culture flows from its geography and resources, history and experience, and society and political structure. It represents an approach that a given state has found successful in the past. Although not immutable, it tends to evolve slowly. This case study examines the strategic culture of the United States. For obvious reasons, the strategic culture of the United States has received considerable attention. The United States is the world's most powerful nation, and will be for the foreseeable future. How the United States behaves affects not only its citizens, but also those across the globe. Understanding the strategic culture of the United States is important for friends, enemies, and neutrals. What follows is an examination of American strategic culture on the level of the nation, the military, and the armed services. As a nation, American strategic culture was shaped by free security and imbued with exceptionalism. American strategic culture emphasizes liberal idealism and views war as a discontinuation of policy. American military culture, the so-called "American way of war," emphasizes direct strategies, an industrial approach to war, and firepower- and technology-intensive approaches to combat. The U.S. armed services, in turn, vary in their structure, dominant groups, and attitudes toward technology.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 13, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA521171
Entities
People
- Thomas G. Mahnken
Organizations
- Leidos