Strategic Culture

The theory of Strategic Culture was articulated by Jack Snyder in 1977 to interpret the Soviet nuclear strategy. It defines the shared beliefs, attitudes and modes of behaviour that shape a community’s collective identity. These social patterns are constructed through national cultural and historic experiences and enable a state to devise and subsequently achieve its foreign policy and security objectives. As these strategies are culturally determined, they assume a state of “semi-permanence”, as opposed to being merely public policy.