Michael Desch - Assessing The Importance of Ideas in Security Studies

Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies
Author(s): Michael C. Desch

Source: International Security, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Summer, 1998), pp. 141-170
Published by: The MIT Press
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CultureClash
Michael
C. Desch
AssessingtheImportanceof Ideas
in SecurityStudies
Cultural theories
have
long enjoyeda prominent

place in thefieldof international
security.
Indeed,
two waves have come and gone sincethestartof WorldWarII, and we are
now at thehighwatermark
ofa third.'Today'sculturalists
in nationalsecurity
studiesare a heterogeneous
lot,who bringa varietyof theoriesto thetable.
in securitystudiesare unitedin their
However,virtually
all new culturalists
beliefthatrealism,thedominantresearchprogramin international
relations
thatemphasizesfactors
suchas thematerialbalanceofpower,is an overrated,
if not bankrupt,body of theory,and thatculturaltheories,whichlook to
ideationalfactors,
do a muchbetterjob ofexplaininghow theworldworks.
Thisarticleassessesthislatestwave of culturaltheoriesin securitystudies
byfocusingon someofitsmostprominent
examples.Thereis no questionthat
all culturaltheoriestellus something
abouthow statesbehave.The
virtually
crucialquestion,however,is whetherthesenew theoriesmerelysupplement
to supplantthem.I arguethatwhenculrealisttheoriesor actuallythreaten
turaltheoriesare assessed using evidencefromthe real world,thereis no
reasonto thinkthattheywill relegaterealisttheoriesto thedustbinof social
Director
andSeniorResearch
at theJohn
MichaelC. Deschis Assistant
Associate
M. OlinInstitute
for
andauthor
Studiesat HarvardUniversity
Strategic
ofCivilian Controlof the Military:The Changing
Md.:Johns
SecurityEnvironment(Baltimore,
Hopkins
University
Press,forthcoming).
I wish to thank RobertArt,Dale Copeland, Colin Elman, Eugene Gholz, JosephGrieco, Samuel
Huntington,lain Johnston,
ChristopherLayne,Jeffrey
Legro,JohnMearsheimer,JohnOdell, Robert
Pape, Daniel Philpott,KennethPollack,BarryPosen, Dan Reiter,Gideon Rose, ScottSagan, Randall
Schweller,Rudra Sill, JackSnyder,Bradley Thayer,Ivan Toft,Monica Toft,and Stephen Walt; the
membersof the Defense and Arms ControlSeminar at the MassachusettsInstituteof Technology;
the Programon InternationalPolitics,Economics, and Securityat the Universityof Chicago; the
ChristopherBrowne Center for InternationalPolitics; and my fellow 1997 American Political
Science AssociationConventionpanelistsfortheirhelpfulcommentson earlierdraftsofthisarticle.
1. In addition to Peter J.Katzenstein,ed., The CultureofNationalSecurity:Normsand Identityin
WorldPolitics(New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1996), the main pieces in this literatureare
Peter J. Katzenstein and Noburo Okawara, "Japan's National Security:Structures,Norms, and
Security,
Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 84-118; Thomas U. Berger,"From
Policies," International
Security,
Vol. 17, No.
International
Sword to Chrysanthemum:Japan'sCulture of Anti-militarism,"
W. Legro, "MilitaryCulture and InadvertentEscalation in
4 (Spring 1993), pp. 119-150; Jeffrey
World War II," InternationalSecurity,Vol. 18, No. 4 (Spring 1994), pp. 108-142; Alastair lain
Security,Vol. 19, No. 4 (Spring 1995),
Johnston,"Thinkingabout StrategicCulture," International
pp. 32-64; Elizabeth Kier,"Culture and MilitaryDoctrine:France between the Wars,"International
W. Legro, CooperationunderFire: AngloSecurity,Vol. 19, No. 4 (Spring 1995), pp. 65-93; Jeffrey
International
Security,
Vol. 23, No. 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 141-170
? 1998 by the Presidentand Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology.
141

International
Security
23:1 | 142
science history.The best case thatcan be made forthese new culturaltheories

is thattheyare sometimesuseful as a supplementto realisttheories.
The post-Cold War wave of culturalismin securitystudies is a broad research programwith a wide range of researchfocuses (such as militarydoctrine, escalation, weapons acquisition, grand strategy,and foreign policy
decision making), embracing a diverse range of epistemologies (from the
avowedly positivisticto the explicitlyantipositivistic)and utilizing a broad
array of explanatoryvariables. Four strands of cultural theorizingdominate
the currentwave: organizational,
political,strategic,and global. For example,
Jeffrey
Legro holds that militarieshave differentorganizationalculturesthat
will lead themto fightdifferently.2
Elizabeth Kier argues thatdifferent
domestic political cultureswill adopt divergentmeans of controllingtheirmilitaries
based on domestic political considerations,not external strategicconcerns.3
Similarly,Peter Katzensteinand Noburo Okawara, and Thomas Berger,maintain thatdomestic politicalattitudestoward the use of forcevary significantly
among states similarlysituated in the internationalsystem.4Stephen Rosen
argues that societies with differentdomestic social structureswill produce
different
levels of militarypower.5lain Johnstonsuggests that domestic strategic culture,ratherthan internationalsystemicimperatives,best explains a
state's grand strategy.6
Martha Finnemoreargues that global cultural norms,
GermanRestraintduringWorldWar II (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1995); Alastair lain

Johnston,CulturalRealism:StrategicCultureand GrandStrategyin ChineseHistory(Princeton,N.J.:
PrincetonUniversityPress, 1995); Jeffrey
W. Legro, "Culture and Preferencesin the International
Cooperation Two-Step,"AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 90, No. 1 (March 1996), pp. 118-137;
Peter J.Katzenstein,CulturalNormsand NationalSecurity(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress,
1996); Elizabeth Kier, ImaginingWar: FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebetweenthe Wars (Princeton,N.J.:
PrincetonUniversityPress, 1997); and Richard Price, The ChemicalWeaponsTaboo (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell UniversityPress, 1997).
Stephen Peter Rosen, "MilitaryEffectiveness:Why Society Matters,"International
Security,Vol.
19, No. 4 (Spring 1995), pp. 23, 24, and his Societiesand MilitaryPower:Indiaand Its Armies(Ithaca,
N.Y.: CornellUniversityPress,1996),pp. 22-26, explicitlycontrasthis domesticstructuralapproach
with a cultural approach. I include him within the post-Cold War culturalistwave, however,
because the domesticsocial structurehe is most interestedin, the Indian caste system,has largely
ideational roots.
2. Legro, Cooperation
underFire,p. 1.
3. Elizabeth Kier,"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorldWar II," in Katzenstein,The
CultureofNationalSecurity,
p. 187; and Kier,"Culture and MilitaryDoctrine,"p. 84.
4. Katzensteinand Okawara, "Japan'sNational Security,"pp. 84-118; Katzenstein,CulturalNorms
and NationalSecurity;and Berger,"From Sword to Chrysanthemum,"pp. 119-150.
5. Rosen, "MilitaryEffectiveness,"
pp. 5-32; and Rosen, Societiesand MilitaryPower,pp. viii-xi.
6. Johnston,CulturalRealism,pp. x, 247, 262-266; Johnston,"Thinkingabout StrategicCulture,"
p. 63; and Alistairlain Johnston,"Cultural Realism and Maoist China," in Katzenstein,The Culture
ofNationalSecurity,
p. 257.

CultureClash| 143
ratherthan domestic state interests,determinepatternsof great power intervention.7Likewise, Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald claim that global
culturalnormsproscribingthe use of particularweapons best account forwhy
theyare not used.8 RobertHerman argues thatthe Soviet Union bowed out of
the Cold War because it was attractedto the norms and cultureof the West.9
Thomas Risse-Kappen argues that alliances such as the North AtlanticTreaty
Organization(NATO) coalesce around globalnorms ratherthan respondingto
mutual threats.10In a similar vein, Michael Barnettmaintains that common
identity,ratherthan shared threat,best explains alliance patterns.11Finally,
Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman argue that all states will acquire similar sorts
of high-technologyconventionalweaponry,not because they need them,but
because these weapons epitomize "stateness."12
These diverse argumentshave a common thread:dissatisfactionwith realist
explanations for state behavior in the realm of national security.As lain
Johnstonnotes,"All [culturalapproaches] take the realistedificeas target,and
focus on cases where structuralmaterial notions of interestcannot explain a
particularstrategicchoice."13Althoughit is obvious thatculturaltheoriesseek
to challenge the realistresearchprogram,the key question is whetherthe new
strategicculturalismsupplants or supplementsrealistexplanations.14 Some of
the new strategicculturaliststake an uncompromisingposition that rejects
realism as a firstcut at explaining strategicbehavior and maintains that
material and structuralvariables are of "secondary importance."15Others
concede thatsometimesstructuralvariables will trumpculture,but thatmost
7. Martha Finnemore,"ConstructingNorms of Humanitarian Intervention,"in Katzenstein,The
Cultuire
ofNationalSecurity,
p. 156.
8. Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence:The Nuclear Weapons Taboo,"
in ibid., pp. 114-153.
9. RobertG. Herman, "Identity,Norms, and National Security:The Soviet ForeignPolicy Revolution and the End of the Cold War," in ibid., pp. 271-316.
10. Thomas Risse-Kappen,"Collective Identityin a DemocraticCommunity:The Case of NATO,"
in ibid., pp. 357-399.
11. Michael N. Barnett,"Identityand Alliances in the Middle East," in ibid., pp. 400-450.
12. Dana P. Eyre and Mark C. Suchman, "Status, Norms, and the Proliferationof Chemical
Weapons: An InstitutionalTheoryApproach," in ibid., pp. 79-113.
13. Johnston,"Thinkingabout StrategicCulture,"p. 41. All the essays in Katzenstein,The Culture
ofNationalSecurity,
explicitlytargetrealism.
14. The authors in the Katzensteinvolume differwidely on this.See Ronald L. Jepperson,Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity,and Culture in National Security,"in
Katzenstein,The CultureofNationalSecurity,
pp. 37, 68; Paul Kowert and Jeffrey
Legro's, "Norms,
Identity,and Their Limits:A TheoreticalReprise," in ibid., p. 496; and Katzenstein,"Conclusion:
National Securityin a Changing World," in ibid., pp. 507-508.
15. Johnston,CulturalRealism,p. 1.

International
Security
23:1 | 144
of thetimethereversewill be true.16All maintainthatculturalvariablesare

morethanepiphenomenato materialfactorsand oftenexplainoutcomesfor
whichrealismcannotaccount.17Becauseno proponentof realismthinksthat
realisttheoriesexplaineverything,18
therewillbe littleargument
aboutculture,
or anyothervariables,supplementing
realism.The majordebatewillconcern
whetherculturaltheoriescan supplantrealisttheories.To makethecase that
culturaltheoriesshouldsupplantexistingtheories,
thenew culturalists
would
have to demonstrate
thattheirtheoriesoutperform
realisttheoriesin "hard
cases" forculturaltheories.As I show,however,mostnew culturalists
do not
employsuchcases.
I beginthisarticleby tracingtheriseand fallofculturaltheoriesin security
studies.NextI discussthe challengesto testingthepost-ColdWarwave of
culturaltheories.I thenshow thatthisthirdwave cannotsupplantrealism.
I suggestwhenand how thethirdwave mightsupplement
Beforeconcluding,
realisttheoriesinnationalsecurity
studies.I concludewitha qualifiedendorsementofthereturnto culturein nationalsecurity
studies.
CultureandNationalSecurity
Studies
In thissectionI examinethe ebb and flowof culturaltheoriesin national
studies.Suchtheorieshave longbeenprominent
in thefield,butthey
security
have neverbecomedominant.Thismayhelp explainwhythethirdwave of
culturaltheorieswillnotsupplantrealisttheories.
THE WORLD
WAR II WAVE
Much of the discussionof how to deal withtheAxis powersduringWorld

WarII was informed
In theUnitedStates,theForeign
by culturaltheorizing.19
MoraleAnalysisDivisionof theOfficeof WarInformation
employeda large
underFire,p. 221.
17. Katzenstein,CulturalNormsand National Security;and Jepperson,Wendt, and Katzenstein,
"Norms, Identity,and Culture,"p. 34.
18. Some of the best critiques of realism have come fromwithin the paradigm itself.See, for
example, Randall L. Schweller,"Bandwagoning forProfit:Bringingthe RevisionistState Back In,"
International
Security,
Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 72-108.
19. The classic examples are Basil Henry Liddell Hart, The BritishWayin Warfare
(London: Faber
and Faber,1932); and Ruth Benedict,The Chrysanthemum
and theSword:PatternsofJapaneseCulture
(Boston:Houghton Mifflin,[1946] 1989). Otherworks on WorldWar II in the strategicculturegenre
include Russell Weigley,The AmericanWayof War:A Historyof UnitedStatesMilitaryStrategyand
Policy (Bloomington:Indiana UniversityPress, 1973); and Martin van Creveld, FightingPower:
Germanand U.S. ArmyPerformance,
1939-1945 (Westport,Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).

CultureClash| 145
number of leading culturalanthropologists,includingGeoffreyBateson, Ruth

Benedict, Geoffrey Gorer, Clyde Kluckhohn, Alexander Leighton, and
MargaretMead, to produce "national character"studies of the Axis powers,
especially Germany and Japan. Although its impact on the actual conduct of
the war is debatable, it is clear that"national character"played an enormous
role in public discourse concerningthe nature of the enemy during World
War 11.20
This firstwave of cultural theories receded soon afterthe end of the war
largelyas a resultof the nuclear revolution.The developmentand deployment
of absolute weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union led many to
anticipatethat this technologywould encourage both superpowers to behave
roughlysimilarly.Nuclear weapons were so destructivethat they made cultural differenceslargelyirrelevant.Instead, the nuclear revolutionushered in
general theories of strategicbehavior such as deterrencetheory,inspired by
the assumptions (homogeneous rational actors) and methodology (rational
choice) of economics. Such rational-actortheoriesof strategicbehavior dominated Cold War national securitystudies in the 1950s and early 1960s.21
THE COLD
WAR WAVE
The failureof the Soviet Union to rest contentonce it had achieved nuclear
parity and the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War undermined many of these
general theories of deterrenceand coercion. The continuingSoviet nuclear
buildup beyond what most agreed was a robustassured destructioncapability
caused many scholars to question the rational-actorassumptions of much of
the general theorizingabout the effectsof nuclear weapons on statecraft.22
The
failure of U.S. effortsto prevent the collapse of a noncommunistregime in
South Vietnam also seemed to undermine general theories of political and
economic developmentand call into question rational-actortheoriesof limited
war. As Colin Gray concluded: "Attemptsto apply Americandeterrencelogic
to all national components in the nuclear arms race are bound to result in
miscalculationifthe distinctivenessof each componentis not fullyrecognized.
and
Similarly,Americantheoriesof limitedwar,escalation,counterinsurgency,
nation-buildingare unlikelyto achieve the desired ends unless adequate at20. For discussion of theirspecifictheoriesand impact,see JohnDower, WarwithoutMercy:Race
and Powerin thePacificWar(New York:Pantheon Books, 1986), pp. 118-146.
(Princeton,N.J.:Princeton
Historyand Strategty
21. For a useful overview,see Marc Trachtenberg,
UniversityPress, 1991), pp. 12-15.
22. Colin S. Gray,"What RAND Hath Wrought,"ForeignPolicy,No. 4 (Fall 1971), pp. 111-129.

International
Security23:1 | 146
tentionis paid to the local contexts."23

Gray'sdissatisfaction
with general
theoriesof strategythatignoreddifferences
in "local context"was widely
sharedamongsecurity
theoriesof
analystsand led to a searchforalternative
strategicbehavior.Culturaltheorieswere one obvious choice,and so they
again attracted
adherentsin security
studies.
The crestof this second wave came duringthe reintensified
Cold War
strugglewiththeSovietUnionin thelate 1970sand early1980s.A numberof
securityspecialistsmaintainedthatbecause theUnitedStateswas culturally
incapableofthinking
and actingstrategically,
itwas at a decisivedisadvantage
vis-a-visthe Soviet Union.24One currentof Cold War culturaltheorizing
focusedon the different
culturesof theAmericanand Soviet
organizational
militaries.
Accordingto RichardPipes,"Current
U.S. strategic
theorywas thus
bornofa marriagebetweenthescientist
and theaccountant.
The professional
soldierwas jilted."25In contrast,these analystssaw the Soviet militaryas
Clausewitzianand operationally
oriented.26
Culturallyorientedsecurityspein theAmericanand Sovietmilitaries'
cialistsbelievedthatthesedifferences
culturesput the UnitedStatesat a decisivedisadvantagein
organizational
current
ofCold Warstrategic
wagingtheCold War.Another
cultural
important
focusedon thecontrasting
theorizing
Americanand Sovietpoliticalcultures.
Somesaw thedemocratic
UnitedStatesas weak and indecisivebecauseithad
few traditions
of prolongedwar or subtlestatecraft.
Given thatthe United
Stateswas also a commercialsociety,theythoughtthatit was incapableof
successfully
playingthe game of highpolitics.Conversely,
theyviewed the
SovietUnionas a highlycohesiveauthoritarian
of
state,witha longtradition
warfareand deep involvement
in greatpowerdiplomacy.WheretheUnited
Stateswas a middle-class,
theSovietUnionwas a peasant
commercial
society,
setofattitudestowardconflict
societywitha dramatically
different
and inter23. Ibid.,p. 126.
24. See RichardPipes,"WhytheSovietUnionThinksIt Could Fightand Wina NuclearWar,"
Vol.64,No. 1 (July1977),pp. 21-34;FritzW. Ermath,
Commentary,
in Americanand
"Contrasts
SovietStrategic
International
Thought,"
Vol.3, No. 2 (Fall 1978),pp. 138-155;Ken Booth,
Security,
Strategy
andEthnocentrism
(New York:Holmesand Meier,1979);ColinS. Gray,"NationalStylein
Strategy:
The AmericanExample,"International
Vol. 6, No. 2 (Fall 1981),pp. 21-47;
Security,
Perish(GardenCity,N.Y.: Doubleday,1984);and Jeane
Jean-Francois
Revel,How Democracies
and DoubleStandards,"
Kirkpatrick,
"Dictatorships
Commentary,
Vol.68,No. 5 (November1979),
pp. 34-45;CarnesLord,"AmericanStrategic
Vol.5, No. 3 (1985),
Culture,"Comparative
Strategy,
pp. 269-294;and Frederick
M. Downeyand StevenMetz,"The AmericanPoliticalCultureand
Strategic
Planning,"
Vol.18,No. 3 (September
Parameters,
1988),pp. 34-42.
25. Pipes,"WhytheSovietUnionThinksIt Could Fightand Wina NuclearWar,"pp. 24,26. See
also Lord,"American
Strategic
Culture,"p. 280;and Gray,"NationalStylein Strategy,"
p. 24.
26. Ermath,
"Contrasts
in Americanand SovietStrategic
Thought,"
p. 155;and Pipes,"Whythe
SovietUnionThinksIt Could Fightand Wina NuclearWar,"pp. 25-26.

CultureClash| 147
would give the

nationalrelations.Criticsseemedsure thatthesedifferences
SovietUniontheedge in theCold War.27
of the UnitedStates'failurein Vietnamand its
Subsequentreassessments
thatthese Cold War culturalist
clear victoryin the Cold War demonstrate
argumentswere wrong.The U.S. loss in Vietnambecame the wellspringof
culture.28
A convincing
ofU.S. strategic
case can
concernaboutthedeficiencies
accomplishedtheir
and military
be made,however,thattheU.S. government
in SouthVietnamfrom
government
a noncommunist
maingoal ofpreserving
to theextentthattheUnitedStatesfailedin Vietnam,
1965to 1973.29Moreover,
taskof nation-building
thatfailurehad moreto do withtheinsurmountable
of our allythanwithanyAmericanculturalshortand themanydeficiencies
If culturewas such a criticalexplanationforthe outcomeof the
comings.30
combatperfordifferent
VietnamWar,how does one explainthedramatically
mancesof theNorthVietnameseand theVietcongcomparedwiththeSouth
and politicalcultures.
Vietnamese
army?All wereproductsofsimilarstrategic
straSeveralyearslater,theSovietUnion,withitssupposedlymoreeffective
in
in
did
no
better
a
similar
sort
of
war
Afghaniand
tegic
politicalcultures,
of
a majortechnological
changein thestructure
stan.31The nuclearrevolution,
the international
system,ultimatelyhad roughlyequivalenteffectson the
ofboththeUnitedStatesand theSovietUnion.32
behavior,ifnottherhetoric,
MostdamningfortheCold Warwave,however,was thefinaloutcomeofthe
the
at the time,33
Cold War itself.Despite forecastsof doom by culturalists
UnitedStatesclearlywon the
and non-Clausewitzian
commercial,
democratic,
and politicalcultures
Cold War,34
and it did so withlargelythesame strategic
27. Revel, How DemocraciesPerish.
see
ofsimilarsentiments,
p. 122.Fora laterexpression
28. Gray,"WhatRAND HathWrought,"
Security,
TheoryofLimitedWar,"International
StephenPeterRosen,"Vietnamand theAmerican
Vol.7, No. 2 (Fall 1982),pp. 83-113.
D.C.:
Worked
(Washington,
TheSystem
29. LeslieGelbwithRichardK. Betts,TheIronyofVietnam:
1979).
Brookings
Institution,
A
see StanleyKarnow,Vietnam:
30. On thenatureofthetaskfacingtheUnitedStatesin Vietnam,
History(New York:Viking,1983); and Neil Sheehan, A Brightand ShiningLie: JohnPaul Vannand
(New York:RandomHouse,1988).
America
in Vietnam
31. Sarah Mendelson,"InternalBattlesand ExternalWars:Politics,Learning,and the Soviet
World
Vol.45,No. 3 (April1993),pp. 327-360.
Withdrawal
fromAfghanistan,"
Politics,
Deterrence
and theRevolutionin SovietMilitaryDoctrine(Washington,
32. See Raymond L. Garthoff,
Statecraft
D.C.: BrookingsInstitution,1990); and RobertJervis,TheMeaningoftheNuclearRevolution:
Press,1989).
andtheProspect
(Ithaca,N.Y.:CornellUniversity
ofArmageddon
in Americanand
"Contrasts
33. See thedirewarningsofincreasedlikelihoodofwar in Ermath,
SovietStrategic
Thought,"
pp. 139-140.
of thisargument,
see JohnLewis Gaddis,"HangingToughPaid Off,"
34. For a bold statement
1989),pp. 11-14.Fora moredetailed
Bulletin
Scientists,
Vol.45,No. 1 (January/February
ofAtomic
"Realismand the
discussionofrealismand theend oftheCold War,see WilliamC. Wohlforth,
1994/95),pp. 91-129.
Vol.19,No. 3 (Winter
Security,
End oftheCold War,"International

International
Security23:1 | 148
One recent
thathad "lost"Vietnam.It also handilywonthePersianGulfWar.35
to the culturalapproach,nonethelessshows how
book,thoughsympathetic
whichreliedheavilyon cultural
traditional
theoriesofSovietdomesticpolitics,
ofSovietologists
to missthedramaticchanges
variables,led thevastmajority
thatweretakingplace rightundertheirnoses.36In short,theCold Warwave
made predictions
thatlargelyturnedout to be wrong.
ofculturaltheorizing
THE POST-COLD WAR WAVE
theunexpectedend ofthe
The failureoftheCold Warwave notwithstanding,
in thesearchforculturalexplanations
for
Cold Warsparkedrenewedinterest
statebehaviorin theinternational
PeterKatzenstein
beginshisbrief
system.37
fora returnto culturein nationalsecurity
studieswiththeassertionthat"itis
relationshave woefully
hard to deny thatexistingtheoriesof international
in worldpolitics."38
fallenshortin explainingan important
revolution
Many
scholarsbelievedthattheCold Warendedbecauseofdomesticchangesin the
or democratization.40
Others
SovietUnionsuchas internal
economiccollapse39
claim thatthe end of the Cold War was literallybroughtabout by "new
theresultofthespreadof a new globalcultureconveyedthrough
thinking,"
or otherepistemiccommuthepeace movement,
concernednaturalscientists,
of therealistview
is a rejection
nities.41Commonto all of theseexplanations
of international
competition
amongstates
politicsthatpositsan unrelenting
forpowerand security.42
35. See Rick Atkinson,Crusade:The UntoldStoryofthePersianGulfWar(Boston:Houghton Mifflin,

1993); and Michael R. Gordon and General BernardE. Trainor,The Generals'War:The InsideStory
oftheConflictin theGulf(Boston: Little,Brown,1995).
36. See Nicolai Petro,The RebirthofRussian Democracy:An Interpretation
ofPoliticalCulture(Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1995), p. 1.
37. Katzenstein,"Conclusion," p. 499; see also the various essays in Richard Ned Lebow and
Thomas Risse-Kappen, eds., International
RelationsTheoryand theEnd of theCold War (New York:
Columbia UniversityPress, 1995).
38. Katzenstein,"Preface,"in Katzenstein,The CultureofNationalSecurity,
p. xi.
39. Valerie Bunce, "Domestic Reformand InternationalChange: The Gorbachev Reformsin HistoricalPerspective,"International
Organization,
Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter1993), pp. 107-138.
40. See, forexample, Bruce M. Russett,GraspingtheDemocraticPeace: Principlesfora Post-ColdWar
World(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1993), pp. 126-129.
41. Emanuel Adler, "Conclusion: Epistemic Communities,World Order, and the Creation of a
ReflectiveResearchProgram,"International
Organization,
Vol. 46, No. 1 (Winter1992), pp. 367-390;
and Rey Koslowski and FriedrichV. Kratochwil,"UnderstandingChange in InternationalPolitics:
The Soviet Empire's Demise and the InternationalSystem,"International
Organization,
Vol. 48, No.
2 (Spring 1994), pp. 215-247.
42. RichardNed Lebow, "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War,and the Failure of Realism,"
in Lebow and Risse-Kappen,International
RelationsTheoryand theEnd oftheCold War,pp. 23-56.

CultureClash| 149
The post-Cold War renaissanceof interestin culturein securitystudies also

reflectsa more general resurgenceof interestin culturalvariables.43The glowing reviews of RobertPutnam'sbook on democracyand Italian politicalculture
are testamentto the renewed interestin, and acceptance of, culture among
The revived legitimacyof culturalvariables also
mainstreamsocial scientists.44
dovetails with revived scholarlyinterestin ideas45and domesticpolitics,46and
a renewed skepticismabout general theories.47Culture is an ideational variable; these ideas are usually domestic; and they frequentlyemphasize the
uniqueness within,ratherthan similarityacross, cases. Finally,the returnto
culturein securitystudies is attractiveto some scholarsbecause cultureis less
wedded to positivism-"the view thatall trueknowledge is scientific"48-than
other approaches to national securitystudies. There has been a growing dissatisfactionwith positivismamong a diverse array of scholars. Many critical
theoristsrejectit out of hand.49There has also been a long traditionof skepti43. Evidence of growingpopular interestin cultureincludes "Cultural Explanations:The Man in
the Baghdad Cafe," Economist,November 9, 1996, pp. 23-26; and David Berreby,"Arrogance,
Order,Amity,and OtherNational Traits,"New YorkTimes,May 26, 1996,Week in Review Section,
pp. 1, 6.
44. RobertPutnam,MakingDemocracyWork:CivicTraditions
in ModernItaly(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress,1993). For an example of a glowing review,see "Pro Bono Publico," Economist,
February6, 1993,p. 96.
45. See the various essays in JudithGoldsteinand Robert0. Keohane, eds., Ideas and ForeignPolicy:
and PoliticalChange(Ithaca,N.Y.: CornellUniversityPress,1993); and JohnOdell,
Beliefs,
Institutions,
U.S. International
MonetaryPolicy:Markets,Power,and Ideas as Sourcesof Change (Princeton,N.J.:
PrincetonUniversityPress,1982). See also Mark M. Blyth,"'Any More BrightIdeas?' The Ideational
Turn of Comparative Political Economy," ComparativePolitics,Vol. 29, No. 2 (January1997),
pp. 229-250.
46. See JoanneGowa, "Anarchy,Egoism, and Third Images: The Evolution of Cooperation and
InternationalRelations," InternationalOrganization,Vol. 40, No. 1 (Winter 1986), pp. 180-182;
OrganiStephen Haggard and Beth A. Simmons,"Theories of InternationalRegimes,"International
zation,Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 513-517; Robert Jervis,"Realism, Game Theory,and
Cooperation," WorldPolitics,Vol. 40, No. 3 (April 1988), pp. 324-329; RobertPutnam,"Diplomacy
Vol. 42, No. 3
and Domestic Politics:The Logic of Two-Level Games," International
Organization,
(Summer 1988), pp. 427-459; and Helen Milner,"InternationalTheories of Cooperation among
under
States," WorldPolitics,Vol. 44, No. 3 (April 1992),pp. 466-496. All cited in Legro,Cooperation
Fire,p. 8, fn. 16.
47. For argumentsagainst theoreticalgeneralization,see Isaiah Berlin,"On Political Judgment,"
New YorkReviewof Books,Vol. 43, No. 15 (October 3, 1996), pp. 26-31; and Albert0. Hirshman,
"The Search forParadigms as a Hindrance to Understanding,"WorldPolitics,Vol. 22, No. 3 (April
1970), pp. 329-343.
48. lan Bullock, Oliver Stallybrass,and Stephen Trombley,eds., The HarperDictionaryofModern
Thought,rev. ed. (New York:Harper and Row, 1988), p. 669.
49. See, forexample, RichardK. Ashley,"The Povertyof Neorealism," in Robert0. Keohane, ed.,
and Its Critics(New York:Columbia UniversityPress,1986),pp. 255-300; RobertW. Cox,
Neorealism
"Towards a Post-HegemonicConceptualization of World Order: Reflectionson the Relevancy of
withoutGovernment:
Ibn Khaldun," in JamesN. Rosenau and Ernst-OttoCzempiel, eds., Governance
Orderand Changein WorldPolitics(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1992), p. 135;
Pauline Rosenau, "Once Again into the Fray: InternationalRelations Confrontsthe Humanities,"

International
Security23:1 1150
cismabouttheclaimsofmodernsocialscience-especiallypositivism-among
How much will this returnto culturehelp us
intellectualconservatives.50
behavior?
understandpost-ColdWarstrategic
in
AssessingthePost-ColdWarWaveofCulturalism
Studies
Security
We facethreepotentialchallengesto assessingtheexplanatory
powerof the
cultural
variables
First,
in
studies.
security
theories
thirdwave of culturalist
believe
Second,someculturaltheorists
are tricky
to defineand operationalize.
thatculturalvariablesmake everycase sui generis,and so theirtheoriesare
because
notbroadlyapplicableand testableacrossa numberofcases.Finally,
culturalism
is actuallya clusterof theories-a researchprogram-itdoes not
cultuwe musttestparticular
per se; rather,
makesenseto assess culturalism
ralisttheories.Althoughthese challengesmake assessingculturaltheories
obstaclesto thisendeavor.
theydo notpresentinsurmountable
difficult,
The firstchallengeof testingculturaltheoriesis thatculturalvariablesare
sometimeshard to clearlydefineand operationalize.This has been a longstandingconcernaboutculturaltheoriesin thesocialsciences.In the1930sand
and in
and psychology,51
1940s,culturewas a centralvariablein anthropology
By the
thelate 1940sand early1950s,it made itsway intopoliticalscience.52
most
however,culturehad largelyfallenintodisreputethroughout
mid-1970s,
ofthesocialsciencesbecausepoliticalculturehad cometo be widelyregarded
The main reasonwas thatthe term
as a "degenerateresearchprogram."53
Vol.19,No. 1 (Spring1990),pp. 83-110;and JosefLapid,"TheThirdDebate:On the
Millennium,
StudiesQuarterly,
Vol.33,
Era,"International
Theoryin a Post-Positivist
ProspectsofInternational
No. 3 (September
1989),pp. 235-254.
50. See Leo Strauss'scriticaldiscussionof social sciencein Strauss,NaturalRightand History
in
ofChicagoPress,1953),pp. 36-78;see also HillailGildin,"Introduction,"
(Chicago:University
TenEssaysbyLeoStrauss(Detroit:WayneState
toPolitical
Philosophy:
Gilden,ed.,An Introduction
University
Press,1989),pp. x-xvii.
"The StudyofCulture,"in Daniel Lernerand HaroldLasswell,eds.,The
51. ClydeKluckhohn,
inScopeandMethod
Calif.:Stanford
University
Press,
(Stanford,
Recent
Developments
PolicySciences:
1951),p. 86,callsculturethe"masterconcept"ofanthropology.
Politics,
Vol.5, No. 1
aboutPoliticalActs,"World
Hypotheses
52. NathanLeites,"Psycho-Cultural
ofLeites'sand also GabrielAlmond'swork
(October1948),pp. 102-119.On theseminalinfluence
PoliticalStructure,
"PoliticalCulture,
inbringing
cultureintopoliticalscience,see CarolePateman,
Science,
Vol.1,Pt.3 (July1971),p. 293;and Lucien
Journal
ofPolitical
and PoliticalChange,"British
1991),p. 489.
Vol.12,No. 3 (September
Political
Psychology,
Pye,"PoliticalCultureRevisited,"
and AnselmL. Strauss,"A CritiqueofCulture53. Key criticalpiecesare AlfredR. Lindesmith
Vol.15,No. 5 (October1950),pp. 587-600;Alex
American
Sociological
Review,
Personality
Writings,"
and SocioculTheStudyofModalPersonality
Inklesand DanielJ.Levinson,"NationalCharacter:
Vol. 2, SpecialFieldsand
ofSocialPsychology,
turalSystems,"in GardnerLindsey,ed., Handbook

CultureClash| 151
"culture" had lost all conceptual clarity.54

Culture went frombeing a central
to a marginalvariable mostlybecause culturalvariables were difficult
to define
and operationalize.55Mary Douglas observed that "there was never such a
fluffynotion at large in a self-styledscientificdiscipline, not since singing
angels blew the planets across the medieval sky or ether filled the gaps in
Newton's universe."56
Ambiguous definitionsof culture,as Ronald Rogowski pointed out, make it
very hard to formulatea testable theoryusing these variables: "There is a
fundamentalfailingin the theorythat makes definitionsuncertain;uncertain
definitionsmake foruncertaintyabout strategiesand measures; and so long
as measures remain uncertain,convincingtests of the theoryare impossible.
The problem lies with the theory.It may be possible to remedyit; but. .. it is
hard to see how."57Definitionssuch as "collectivelyheld ideas, beliefs,and
norms" that culturaltheoristscommonlyuse are so broad and imprecisethat
theyhave proven difficultto operationalize.58
As with early cultural research in political science, some believe that the
latest wave of culturalismin securitystudies has still not formulateda clear
and widely accepted definitionof culture.59Although all the contributorsto
The CultureofNationalSecurity,a collectionof essays by some of the leading
post-Cold War advocates of a returnto culture in national securitystudies,
Applications(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1954), pp. 977-1020; Pateman, "Political Culture,"
pp. 291-306; Ronald Rogowski, RationalLegitimacy:
A Theoryof PoliticalSupport(Princeton,N.J.:
PrincetonUniversityPress, 1974); Brian Berry,Sociologists,Economists,and Democracy(Chicago:
Universityof Chicago Press, 1978); David J.Elkins and Richard E.B. Simeon, "A Cause in Search
of Its Effect,or What Does PoliticalCulture Explain?" Comparative
Politics,Vol. 11, No. 2 (January
1979), pp. 127-145; Ole Elgstr6m,"National Culture and InternationalNegotiations,"Cooperation
and Conflict,
Vol. 29, No. 3 (September1994), pp. 289-301; and RobertBrightman,"ForgetCulture:
Replacement,Transcendence,Relexification,"CulturalAnthropology,
Vol. 10, No. 4 (1995), pp. 509546. For more sympatheticdiscussion of the problemswith culture,see Gabriel A. Almond, "The
IntellectualHistoryof the Civic Culture Concept," in Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba,eds.,
The Civic CultureRevisited(Newbury Park, N.J.: Sage Publications, 1980), pp. 1-35; Samuel P.
Huntington,"The Goals of Development," in Samuel P. Huntington and Myron Weiner,eds.,
PoliticalDevelopment:
An AnalyticStudy(Boston: Little,Brown,1987), pp. 3-32; and
Understanding
Pye, "Political Culture Revisited,"pp. 487-507.
54. Pateman,"Political Culture,"p. 305; and David D. Laitin,"The Civic Culture at 30," American
PoliticalScienceReviezv,
Vol. 89, No. 1 (March 1995), p. 168.
55. CliffordGeertz,TheInterpretation
ofCultures(New York:Harper,1974), pp. 4-5, notes thatthis
problemextendsback to Clyde Kluckhohn'sclassic MirrorforMan (New York:WhittleseyHouse,
1949).
56. Mary Douglas, "The Self-Completing
Animal,"TimesLiterary
Supplement,
August 8, 1975,p. 888.
57. Rogowski, RationalLegitimacy,
p. 13.
58. Pateman, "Political Culture,"p. 293, fn.7.
59. This has been noted even by such sympatheticreviewers as Kowert and Legro, "Norms,
Identity,and TheirLimits,"p. 483; and also by Daniel Philpott,"The Possibilitiesof Ideas," Security
Studies,Vol. 5, No. 4 (Summer 1996), p. 192.

International
Security
23:1 | 152
assert that ideas, not materialfactors,best account forparticularoutcomes,a

consensus on the definitionof cultureremains elusive. Significantly
different,
and potentiallycontradictory,
concepts such as organizationalculture("collectivelyheld beliefswithin a particular. . . organization"60)and global culture
(universally embraced ideas and norms) huddle uneasily under the same
culturalistumbrella. For instance,Dana Eyre and Mark Suchman's argument
about the global culturalideas of what constitutesstatehood leading all states
to adopt certainweapons, if applied to nuclear proliferation,mightstand in
conflictwith an organizationalculturaltheorythat would anticipatethat the
different
organizationalculturesof militaryorganizationsshould lead themto
adopt different
types of militarytechnology.
The definitionalproblem,however,is largelyone of application ratherthan
principle,because it is possible to clearlydefineand operationalize culture.A
useful definitionof cultureemphasizes collectivelyheld ideas thatdo not vary
in the face of environmentalor structuralchanges. These ideas should be
particularto individual states,ratherthan held commonlyacross the international system.For example, "strategicculture,"as JackSnyder employs it, is
"the sum total of ideas, conditioned emotional responses, and patterns of
habitual behavior that members of a national strategiccommunityhave acquired throughinstructionor imitationand share with each other."61
The second challenge to assessing culturaltheoriesis thatsome new culturalistsin securitystudies focus on the particularsof single cases, ratherthan
on factorscommon to a number of cases, because theyassume that each one
is sui generis.62These sortsof culturalvariables could make it hard to generalize because they oftenproduce cases that challenge the "unit homogeneity
assumption," which holds that cases have enough meaningfulsimilaritiesto
be comparable.63Cases employingthese sortsof culturalvariables can at best
be "configurative-ideographic"
studies that only establish the limits of comparative theories.64The core tenetof such a culturalapproach is a rejectionof
60. Kier,"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorld War II," p. 203.

61. JackL. Snyder,The SovietStrategicCulture:Implications
forLimitedNuclear Operations,RAND
Report [R-2154-AF](Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, September1977).
62. This mightbe because, as Peter Katzensteintold me, he is "not interestedin theorizingper se
but in solving puzzles." Personal correspondence,September12, 1997. Huntington,"The Goals of
Development," p. 27, notes thatthis can be a problem with culturaltheoriesin general.
63. On thisassumption,see GaryKing,RobertKeohane, and SidneyVerba,DesigningSocialInquiry
(Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1994), p. 116.
64. HarryEckstein,"Case Study and Theoryin PoliticalScience,"in Fred I. Greensteinand Nelson
Polsby,eds., Hanidbook
ofPoliticalScienice,
Vol. 7 (Reading,Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1975), pp. 96-99;

CultureClash | 153
externalrationalism(which makes behavior predictableacross cases).65If that

were true,then these culturalistswould have few,if any,systematicelements
on which to build their theories. Without systematicvariables, there is no
prediction.Prediction,however,is centralto the social scientificenterprisenot
only fortheoreticalreasons (we need theoriesto make predictionsin order to
testthe theories),66
but also forpolicy analysis (theoriesthatdo not make clear
predictionsare of littleuse to policymakers).67
The sui generis challenge raises a major issue that has thus far been neglected by some new culturalistsin securitystudies. CliffordGeertz,at least,
confrontedthis issue squarely and acknowledged that it is a profoundproblem: "The great natural variation of cultural forms is, of course, not only
anthropology'sgreat (and wasting) resource,but the ground of its deepest
theoreticaldilemma: How is such variationto be squared with the biological
human beings
unityof the human species?"68Despite superficialdifferences,
share some fundamentalsimilaritiesupon which the formulationof theories
of human behavior ought to be possible at a general level. Many new culturalistsin securitystudies have not adequately wrestled with the question of
how much common human psychology,physiology,and physicslead to similar patternsof behavior.
The sui generischallenge ineluctablyleads to the largerquestion of whether
it is possible to have a "science" of culture.69
Some scholarsbelieve thatculture
is amenable to systematicstudy.70Others, like Geertz, are skeptical: "The
analysis of [cultureis]," he says, "not an experimentalscience in search of law
and Theda Skocpol and Margaret Somers, "The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial
Inquiry,"Comparative
Stuidiesin SocietyancdHistory,Vol. 22, No. 1 (January1980), p. 196.
65. Jepperson,Wendt,and Katzenstein,"Norms, Identity,and Culture,"p. 44.
66. King, Keohane, and Verba, DesigningSocial Inqluiry,
p. 63; Eckstein,"Case Study and Theory
in Political Science," p. 88; and Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methodology
forStutdenits
of Political
Science(Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UniversityPress, forthcoming),
memo no. 1.
67. Alexander L. George, "Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured,
NezvApproachesin History,Theory,
Focused Comparison," in Paul Gordon Lauren, ed., Diplomncy:
and Policy(New York:Free Press,1979),pp. 43-68; and George,BridgingtheGap: Theoryand Practice
in ForeignPolicy(Washington,D.C.: United States Instituteof Peace, 1993).
68. Geertz,The Interpretation
ofCtultures,
p. 22.
69. For a similardebate in the fieldof history,see E.H. Carr, WhatIs History?(New York:Vintage
Books, 1961), pp. 78-79.
70. David D. Laitin,HegemonyanidCulture:PoliticsancdReligiouts
ChangeamongtheYoruba(Chicago:
UniversityofChicago Press,1986). See also Aaron Wildavsky,"Choosing PreferencesBy Constructing Institutions,"AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,Vol. 81, No. 1 (March 1987), p. 5; and Otto
Klineberg,"A Science of National Character,"JournalofSocial Psychology,
Vol. 19, No. 1 (February
1944), p. 161.

International
Security23:1 | 154
but an interpretive
one in searchof meaning."71
Geertznotes further
that
culturaltheoriesfailto providetwo of the hallmarksof science:cumulation
and prediction.72He concludes that "anthropology . . . is a science whose
progressis markedless by a perfection

of consensusthanby a refinement
of
debate.What getsbetteris the precisionwithwhichwe vex each other."73
Samuel Huntington,
anotherlong-standing
proponentof culturalist
theories,
admits that "cultural explanations are .
. oftenimprecise or tautological or
both,at theextremecomingdown to a moresophisticated

of 'the
rendering
Frenchare likethat.'On theotherhand,culturalexplanations
are also unsatisfyingfora social scientist
because theyruncounterto thesocial scientist's
proclivity
to generalize."74
Thus thecompatibility
of culturewitha positivist
approachto social sciencehas always been questionable.75
As David Laitin
notes:"It is not some idea that'culturedoes not matter'thathas brought
researchon politicalcultureto a standstill.Rather,the systematic
studyof
culturewithinpoliticalsciencehas been emasculatedby the neopositivist
whichsetsa centralmethodological
tradition,
thata theorymust
requirement
have generallaws thatcan [be] disconfirmed."76
in security
Amongthenew culturalists
studiesare explicitmodernists
who
believethatculturalvariablesare as amenableto social-scientific
studyas any
oftheothervariablesemployedby socialscientists.77
Thereare also unapoloin the new culturalistcamp. RichardPrice and Nina
getic antimodernists
Tannenwald,forexample,maintainthattheirapproach"does not view the
worldintermsofdiscretely
variableswhoseindependent
existing
independent
on variancecan be measuredaccordingto thelogicofstatistics."78
effect
Thus
thenewculturalism
in security
studiesremainsmiredintheunresolveddebate
aboutwhethertherecanbe a scienceofculturebetweenGeertzand Laitin,the
71. Geertz,TheInterpretation
ofCultures,p. 5. See also CliffordGeertz,"On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding,"AmericanScientist,Vol. 63, No. 1 (January/February
1975), p. 48; and
David Berreby,"CliffordGeertz: Absolute Untruths,"New YorkTimesMagazine, April 9, 1995,
pp. 44-45.
72. Geertz,TheInterpretation
ofCultures,pp. 25-26.
73. Ibid., p. 29.
74. Huntington,"The Goals of Development," p. 23.
75. David Collier,"The Comparative Method: Two Decades of Change," in Dankwart A. Rustow
and KennethPaul Erickson,

eds.,Comparative
Political
Dynamics:
GlobalResearch
Perspectives
(New
York:HarperCollins,1991), p. 7, notes Harold Lasswell's claim thatscientificanalysis is "unavoidably comparative."

76. Laitin,Hegemonyand Culture,p. 172.
77. Legro, "Culture and Preferences,"p. 118.
78. Price and Tannenwald, "Norms and Deterrence,"pp. 147-148; see also Price, The Chemical
Weapons
Taboo,
p. 104.

CultureClash| 155
preeminentantimodernistand modernist,respectively,in the general field of

contemporaryculturalstudies.
The sui generis challenge does not, however, undermine the entire new
culturalistresearchprogramin securitystudies.Cultural theoriesthatmay not
be amenable to generalizationacross cases might still lead to generalization
withincases across time.In otherwords,theymay not offergeneral theoriesof
all states' behavior but may suggest theories of a particular state's foreign
policy behavior over time. This criticismalso does not apply to arguments
employinguniversalnorms,global culture,or civilization.Huntington's"clash
of civilizations,"forexample, is a general theoryof statebehavior,in thiscase
Also, some generic
alignment decisions, based on cultural identification.79
political culture theories,such as Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba's "civic
culture," are applicable across a number of cases. However, most domestic
politicalcultureand strategicculturetheories,and nearlyall theoriesbased on
organizational culture,sufferfromthe sui generis problem. In consequence,
most domesticculturalvariables can explain only a limitedrange of behavior.
However, given that this is not true of all of the new cultural theories in
securitystudies, it certainlydoes not call into question the whole research
program.
The finalchallenge to assessing the post-Cold War culturalismis thatboth
culturalismand realism are researchprogramsratherthan concretetheories.80
Research programs are clustersof theoriesthat share the same core assumptions,but theymighthave differentauxiliaryassumptions,which could lead
them to make very differentpredictionsabout the same case.81 Conversely,
theories from differentresearch programs may make the same predictions
about the same case. Thus, ratherthan pittingculturalismagainst realism,we
should look at particular sets of theories that vary across two dimensions:
domestic versus internationaland material versus ideational. These two dimensions produce the two-by-twodiagram in Figure 1. Structuralrealism or
and theRemaking
ofWorldOrder(New York:
TheClashofCivilizations
79. SamuelP. Huntington,
Simon and Schuster,1996).

80. For discussion of this, see Imre Lakatos, "Falsificationand the Methodology of Scientific
Research Programmes,"in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticismand the Growthof
Knowledge(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1970), pp. 91-196. Colin Elman offersa
useful discussion of the applicationof Lakatos to the new strategicculturalismin Elman, "Neocultural Progress? A PreliminaryDiscussion of Lakatos's Methodology of ScientificResearch Programs," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington,D.C., August 28-31, 1997.
81. See, forexample, Michael C. Desch, "Why RealistsDisagree about the ThirdWorld (And Why
They Shouldn't)," SecurityStudies,Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 358-384.

International
Security23:1 156
Figure1. How Theoriesin NationalSecurityDiffer.

Material
Ideational
Domestic
(1) Organizational
theoryand
traditionalrealism
International
(2) Structuralrealism
or neorealism
(3) Organizational,
political,
and strategicculture
(4) Global culture

and norms
NOTE:Colin Elman,in "Do Unto OthersAs They Would Do Unto You? The Internaland
ExternalDeterminants
of Military
Practices,"unpublishedmanuscript(Cambridge,Mass.:
JohnM. OlinInstitute
forStrategicStudies,HarvardUniversity,
May 1996),p. 33, divides
theoriesin a similarway.
neorealism (Box 2) is a general theorythat uses the distributionof material

capabilities in the internationalsystemto explain systemicoutcomes such as
alliance patterns.82Conversely, organizational theory (Box 1) looks to the
particularmaterialinterestsof organizationsto explain strategicbehavior such
as the choice of a particularmilitarydoctrine.83
Traditionalrealism(also Box 1)
looks to otherdomestic factorssuch as human natureto explain international
conflict.Organizational, political, and strategiccultural arguments (Box 3)
employ domesticideational variables to account forthe typeof grand strategy
a stateadopts or theparticularmilitarydoctrineit embraces.Conversely,global
culturalor internationalnormativetheories(Box 4) use internationalideational
variables to explain humanitarian intervention,the adoption of particular
militarytechnologies,or why states choose to ally.
While culturalisttheories clearly challenge realist theories,both research
programscan also containtheoriesthatmightchallenge each other.For example, BarryPosen tests a structuralrealist theoryof doctrinalinnovation (balance-of-powertheory)(Box 2) against organizationtheory(Box 1).84 There are
also major debates between structural(Box 2) and classical (Box 1) realistson
82. The seminal statementof this is Kenneth N. Waltz, TheoryofInternational
Politics(Reading,
Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1979).
83. Importantexamples ofsuch theorizinginclude JackSnyder,TheIdeologyoftheOffensive:
Military
Decisionmaking
and theDisastersof1914 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1984); and Stephen
Van Evera, "The Cult of the Offensiveand the Originsof the FirstWorldWar,"in Steven E. Miller,
ed., MilitaryStrategyand theOriginsof theFirst WorldWar (Princeton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversity
Press, 1985), pp. 88-107.
84. BarryR. Posen,TheSourcesofMilitary

Doctrine:
France,
Britain,
andGermany
between
theWars
(Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UniversityPress, 1984).

CultureClash| 157
a varietyof issues.85Withone notable exception,86

however,the new strategic
culturalistshave been so preoccupied with theirchallenge to realismthatthey
have largely ignored very importantdifferenceswithin the culturalistcamp
itself.For example, culturaltheoriesin both Boxes 3 and 4 are included within
the same researchprogram,but theycould just as easily serve as alternatives
to each otheras to theoriesin Boxes 1 and 2.
In addition to obscuringimportantdifferences
withinthe culturalistresearch
program,these dichotomies gloss over importantsimilaritiesbetween some
culturalistargumentsand other nonculturaltheories.For example, although
realists do not expect all states to have identical domestic structuresor to
exhibitthe same internationalbehavior, they do expect functionalsimilarity
among the great powers.87The problem is thatthis predictionis very similar
to a global culturalprediction.The question,then,is what explains thatsimilar
behavior? Not only is it clear that the new culturalistsin securitystudies are
sidestepping importantdebates within the culturalistresearch program,but
theirpredictionsare sometimeshard to disentanglefromthose of realists.
The new culturalistsin securitystudies also identifywith the larger sociological challenge to materialistand rationalisttheories.88The "sociological"
versus "rationalist"distinction,however, obscures as much as it illuminates.
To begin, it is misleading to juxtapose culturaltheorieswith rational theories
because many of the new strategicculturalisttheoriesmaintainthatcommon
85. These debates are played out in Benjamin Frankel,ed., "Roots of Realism," SecurityStudies,
Vol. 5, No. 2 (Winter1995); and Frankel,ed. "Realism: Restatementsand Renewal," SecurityStudies,
Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring 1996).
86. Johnston,"Cultural Realism in Maoist China," p. 228.
87. Waltz, TheoryofInternational
Politics,pp. 127-128, talks about "sameness" but appears to be
referringto functionalsimilarity.Most otherrealistsendorse Waltz's basic argumentthatanarchy
forces states to performthe same functions,but anticipate that they will do so in somewhat
different
ways as the resultof variationsin geographicposition (land powers vs. sea powers) and
the level of currenttechnology.See, forexample, ChristopherLayne, "The Unipolar Illusion: Why
New Great Powers Will Rise," International
Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 15-16, foran
Security,
argument that great powers will performthe same general functionsbut may have different
structures.Of realists,onlyJoaoResende-Santos,"Anarchyand the Emulationof MilitarySystems:
MilitaryOrganizationand Technologyin South America,1870-1914," SecurityStudies,Vol. 5, No.
3 (Spring 1996), pp. 193-260,predictsstrictisomorphism.
88. Katzenstein,"Introduction,"in Katzenstein,The CultureofNationalSecurity,
p. 4. This perspective grew out of work done in sociology examples thatcan be foundin JohnW. Meyer and Michael
T. Hannan,eds., NationalDevelopment
and theWorldSystem:
Educational,
Economic,
and Political
Change,1950-1970 (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1979); AlbertBergesen,ed., Studiesofthe

ModernWorldSystem(New York:Academic Press, 1980); and George M. Thomas, JohnW. Meyer,
Francisco0. Ramirez,and JohnBoli, eds., Institutional
Structure:
Constituting
State,Society,and the
Individual(Newbury Park, N.J.:Sage, 1987).

International
Security23:1 | 158
ideas make certainbehaviors "rational" by imposing costs and benefitsin the

same way that neorealists and organizational theoriststhink that material
structuresimpose rationality.Moreover,if by "rationalist"one means a commitmentto a modernistresearchepistemologysuch as positivism,framingthe
debate as between sociological and rationalisttheoriesis not all that helpful
either.The new strategicculturaliststhemselves differsignificantlyin their
commitmentto the tenets of modern social science.89Therefore,ratherthan
testing culturalistversus realist, or sociological versus rationalist,research
programs, I think it is more useful to pit culturalisttheories against the
evidence and against realist theories to ascertainjust how much they really
explain.90
in NationalSecurity
WhyCultureCannotSupplantRealistTheories
The central problem with the new culturalismin securitystudies is that its
theories,by themselves,do not provide much additional explanatorypower
beyond existingtheories.The Cold War wave of cultural theorizinghad the
virtue of making clear empirical predictionsthat made it possible to test its
theoriesagainst both real-worldevidence and alternativetheories.As we saw,
the empirical trackrecord of strategiccultural analysis during the Cold War
was weak.
Although the post-Cold War wave of culturaltheorizinghas, forthe most
part,not yetbeen proven wrong,it will not supplant realisttheoriesin national
securitystudies because it has selected cases thatdo not provide crucial tests
that enable us to distinguishwhich theoriesare better.91
Instead of selecting
"hard cases" for cultural theories, much of the new cultural literaturein
securitystudies relies on fourothertypes of cases: (1) "most likely" cases for
the culturalisttheories;(2) cases thathave the same outcomes as predictedby
realist theories;(3) cases where the culturalistinterpretationsare disputable;
and (4) cases in which it is too early to tell what the outcome will be.
89. lain Johnston'scomments on an earlier draft of this article played an importantrole in

clarifyingforme therelationshipbetween culturalismand rationalism.Kowertand Legro,"Norms,
Identity,and Their Limits," also provide a useful discussion of rationalismand culturalism.See
p. 457, fn. 11.
90. This is what Lakatos, "Falsificationand the Methodologyof ScientificResearchProgrammes,"
characterizesas a "three-corneredfight,"p. 115.
91. On crucial tests,see ArthurL. Stinchcombe,Constructing
Social Theories(New York:Harcourt,
Brace, and World,1968), pp. 24-28.

CultureClash| 159
MOST LIKELY CASES
butthey
The new culturalist
arguments
maybe rightin a leasttwoinstances,
can supplantrealism.Thisis
do nottellus muchaboutwhetherculturalism
theoriesand "least
because theyemploy"most likely"cases forculturalist
Thesecases are therefore
poor tests
likely"cases fortherealistalternatives.92
well. "If a theory
becausewe would expecttheculturalist
theoryto perform
"itbecomesmore
standsup undera toughertest,"arguesArthur
Stinchcombe,
crediblethanit is if it standsup when we have subjectedit only to weak
tests."93
Forinstance,
thatdifferent
typesofsocietieswill
StephenRosen'sargument
is undoubtedlytrueforhis
producedifferent
levelsof military
effectiveness
Indiancases. Historically,
Indiansocietywas deeplydivided,and thisunderHowever,thevalue of thisevidencefor
minedIndia's military
effectiveness.
ideationalapproachesarebetterthan
thelargerquestionofwhetherdomestic,
materialapproachesis minimal.Realistsdo notexpectall states
international,
Rather,
theyexpectfunctional
similarity
to have identicaldomesticstructures.
internalstructures
and external
among the greatpowersbut also different
behaviorsbased on such thingsas geographicpositionand level of military
ThusrealistswouldnotexpectIndia,or anyotherstatethatis not
technology.
effective
a centralplayerin globalpolitics,to be as militarily
as,
consistently
In other
or havesimilardomesticstructures
as, statesthatarecentralplayers.94
thefact
theories,
words,giventhatIndia is a "mostlikely"case forculturalist
of
thatit passed thattesttellsus littleabout the moregeneralsuperiority
culturaltheories.
MarthaFinnemore
Similarly,
arguesthatrealistswould anticipateintervenare at stake,and thefactthatthere
tiononlywhenvitalgeopoliticalinterests
intervention
in placeswithoutmuchgeopoliticalvalue
is muchhumanitarian
leads herto concludethatthisis a puzzle forrealism.This mischaracterizes
92. On "most likely" and "least likely" cases, see Eckstein,"Case Study and Theory in Political
Science," pp. 118-119.
SocialTheories,
93. Stinchcombe,
p. 20.
Constructing
94. The classic statementof this argument,which realistsfrequentlycite,is Otto Hintze, "Military
Organizationand the Organizationof the State," in Felix Gilbert,ed., The HistoricalEssaysofOtto
Hintze (Oxford,U.K.: Oxford UniversityPress, 1984), pp. 178-221. The reason I thinkthat India
faced a less challenginginternationalsecurityenvironmentis thatin one data set it had a yearly
battledeath average of263 compared witha centralactorlike Prussia/Germany,whichhad 41,181.
A Statistical
Handbook
(New
See J.David Singerand MelvinSmall,TheWagesofWar:1816-1965:
York: JohnWiley and Sons, 1972), Table 11.2. Another source notes that India fought95 wars,
whereas the German statesparticipatedin 170. See George C. Kohn, DictionaryofWars(New York:
Facts on File, 1986), pp. 545-550.

International
Security23:1 | 160
the realistargument:realistsrecognizethatstateshave a hierarchyof interests,

securityat the top, but then economic welfare,ideological, and humanitarian
concernsin descending order.95Humanitarianinterventionper se is not inconsistentwith realism:only such interventionthatunderminesa state's security
or economic interestsis. As Finnemoreconcedes in her historicalcases, "Humanitarianaction was rarelytaken when it jeopardized other stated goals or
interestsof a state."96Given that this is true of all of the contemporarycases
she examines, they are "most likely" cases for culturalisttheories. Neither
Rosen nor Finnimoreis wrong about theircases, and both have shed lighton
the questions of why statesmightnot be able to generatemuch militarypower
and why statesintervenein place where theyhave few strategicinterests,but
neitherhas demonstratedthe superiorityof the culturalistapproach.
INDISTINGUISHABLE
CASES
The second class of cases that culturalistsemploy are those in which their
theoriesand realisttheoriesmake similaror identicalpredictions.For example,
Jeffrey
Legro argues thatthe different
strategicbehaviors,in particularescalation decisions, of Germany,the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the
United States during World War II were the resultof theirmilitaries'distinct
organizational cultures.Few realistswould agree with his assertion that this
presentsa puzzle forrealism,because while realistswould anticipatestatesto
be functionallysimilar,they would also expect differently
placed states to
Thereforerealistswould not be surprised
adopt different
militarystrategies.97
that Great Britainescalated the air war against Germanybecause until 1944
that was the only way it could inflictdamage on its adversary.98Similarly,
realistswould expect thatGerman strategywould be verydifferent,
tied much
more closely to the ground war,as a resultof Germany'sgeographicalposition
and the advances it had made in armorand mechanized warfaretechnology.99
95. For a discussion of realism'shierarchyof state interests,see Robert0. Keohane and JosephS.
WorldPoliticsin Transition
Nye, Powerand Interdependence:
(Boston: Little,Brown,1977), p. 24.
96. Finnemore,"ConstructingNorms," p. 168.
97. RobertGilpin, Warand Changein WorldPolitics(Cambridge,U.K.: Cambridge UniversityPress,
1981), pp. 87-88; Posen, The Sources ofMilitaryDoctrine,pp. 36, 61-62, 65-66; Joseph Grieco,
Barriersto Trade(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
CooperationamongNations:Europe,America,and Non-Tariff
UniversityPress, 1990), pp. 39-40; and Waltz, TheoryofInternational
Politics,pp. 97-99, 183-192.
An extended discussion of this can be found in Colin Elman, "Responding to MilitaryPractices:
Convergence and Divergence in InternationalSecurity,"paper presented at the Annual Meeting
of the InternationalStudies Association,San Diego, California,April 16-20, 1996.
98. Richard Overy,WhytheAllies Won(New York:Norton,1995), p. 108.
99. For discussions of Germanblitzkriegstrategy,see JohnJ.Mearsheimer,Conventional
Deterrence
(Ithaca,N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1983),pp. 29-30, 32-33, 35-43; and Len Deighton,Blitzkrieg:
FromtheRise ofHitlerto theFall ofDunkirk(New York:HarperPaperbacks,1994).

CultureClash| 161
They would also anticipatethat German air strategywould be very different

fromBritain'sbecause tactical,ratherthan strategic,air power best complementedtheblitzkrieg.100
EarlyGerman escalationof the U-boat war also seems
rationalinasmuch as thatwas the only way forthe Germans to strikeat Great
In short,Legro's organizationalculturaltheoryand realismmake the
Britain.101
same retrodictionsforthese cases.
lain Johnston'sargumentthat domestic strategicculture,ratherthan systemic pressures,best explains Ming Chinese grand strategyis more complicated. He insists that this realiststrategicculturewas the result of domestic,
not international,factorsbecause there was variation in externalthreatsbut
consistencyin strategicculture.There are two problems with this argument,
however. First,Ming China consistentlyfaced an anarchical internationalenvironment,and so therewas always an externalthreat.Johnstonadmits that,
"strictlyspeaking,"the internationalenvironmentChina confrontedwas anarchical.102
Second, Johnstonhimselfshows, as realistswould anticipate,thatuse
To
of forceby the Ming varied with changes in theirmilitarycapabilities.103
make his case, Johnstonneeds cross-nationalcases of similarlypositioned
statesbehaving differently.
He would also have to provide a strategiccultural
account forinstancesof differently
configured,but similarlypositioned,states
behaving similarly.Johnston'swork not only calls into question an interpretationof a case frequentlycited as an example of the importanceof strategic culture,but his own argument is hard to disentangle from the realist
alternative.104
Finally,Elizabeth Kier maintains that the French domestic political and

militaryorganizationalculturesbeforeWorldWar II preventedtheFrenchfrom
taking steps that mighthave avoided the catastrophicdefeat of May 1940.105
In her view, the French civilian leadership was more concerned with the
domestic threatfrom the French militarythan with the internationalthreat
fromGermany,and so theyforcedthe militaryto take steps that,given France's
particularmilitaryorganizationalculture,made it impossible for the country
100. RobertA. Pape, Bombingto Win:AirPowerand Coercionin War(Ithaca,N.Y.: CornellUniversity
Press, 1996), pp. 70-71.
101. On the U-boat campaign, see Dan van der Vat, The AtlanticCampaign:WorldWarII's Great
Struggleat Sea (New York:Harper and Row, 1988).
102. See Johnston,"Cultural Realism and Maoist China," p. 260.
103. Johnston,CulturalRealism,p. 250.
104. Johnston,"Cultural Realism and Maoist China," p. 264, explicitlyeschews "criticaltests."
105. Kier, ImaginingWar,pp. 56-88. Other studies that emphasize the links between domestic
in
political conflictand the Frenchdefeat include Marc Bloch, StrangeDefeat:A StatementWritten
1940 (New York: Octagon Books, 1968), and Eugen Weber,The Hollow Years:Francein the1930s
(New York:Norton,1994), chap. 10.

International
Security23:1 | 162
to maintainthe offensivemilitarydoctrineit had in the 1920s into the 1930s.

Realistswould argue,however,thatchanges in Frenchmilitarydoctrineclearly
reflectedEurope's changingbalance of power.106In 1920 France and Germany
were almost even in population (39 million vs. 42.8 million),and France had
a clear advantage in military manpower (350,000 vs. 100,000 standing
troops).107
Given these figures,it is not surprisingthatFrance had an offensive
militarydoctrine.By 1928, however,France began to fall dramaticallybehind
Germanynot only in population (41 millionvs. 55.4 million),but also in terms
of industrialpotential(ifBritainin 1900 = 100,France = 82 vs. Germany= 158)
and percentageof world manufacturing(6 percentvs. 11.6 percent).By 1937
the Frenchhad less than a thirdof German war-makingpotential(France had
4.2 percentand Germany had 14.4 percentof world war-makingcapability).
In 1938 France fell even furtherbehind in population (41.9 million vs. 68.5
million),industrialpotential(74 vs. 228), and percentageof world manufacturing capability(4.4 percentvs. 12.7 percent).108
By 1940 France was at a slight
disadvantage in standingmilitaryforces(689,010vs. 720,000),109
but therewas
a huge gap in latentmilitarypower. Given this dramaticchange in the internationalbalance of power,and the difficulties
France faced in securingreliable
allies in the multipolarinternationalsystem,110
realists expected that France
would embrace a defensivemilitarydoctrineby the 1930s.
As an aside, the reasons France made the fatefulstrategicdecisions it did
actuallyhad littleto do with the domesticpoliticalcrisisof the ThirdRepublic
or even with its defensive militarydoctrine.111
The key to the French defeat
was thatit adopted a war plan thatput the bulk of its forcestoo farnorthin
Belgiumto blunttheGermanattackthroughtheArdennes.The Frenchmilitary
leadership made a clear strategicblunder by overestimatingthe difficulty
the
Germans would have in advancing throughthe Ardennes; however,thismistake was not rooted in French political and militaryorganizational cultures,
106. Mearsheimer,Conventional
Deterrence,
pp. 67-98; and Posen, TheSources
ofMilitary
Doctrine,
pp. 115, 122-130,235-239.
107. TheStatesman's
Yearbook
(New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1920), pp. 840, 908.
108. All of these comparisons are drawn fromPaul M. Kennedy,TheRiseand Fall oftheGreat
Powers:
Economic
Change
andMilitary
Conflict
from
1500to2000(New York:Random House, 1987),
pp. 200-202,332.
109. TheStatesman's
Yearbook
(New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1940), p. 968.
110. Thomas Christensenand JackSnyder,"Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: PredictingAlliance
Patternsin Multipolarity,"
International
Organization,
Vol. 44, No. 2 (Spring 1990), pp. 137-168.
111. For discussion of why France lost, see RobertJ.Young, In Command
ofFrance:French
Foreign
PolicyandMilitary
Planning,
1933-1940(Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1978); and
AnthonyAdamthwaite,France
andtheComing
oftheSecondWorld
War(London: FrankCass, 1977).

CultureClash| 163
because it was also made by non-Frenchmenincluding the eminent British

militarywriterSir Basil Henry Liddell Hart and much of the German high
command beforeFebruary1940.112In otherwords,not only can a realisttheory
account for changes in French militarydoctrine between the wars, but it
provides a betterexplanationforthe outcome of the Battleof France.
The same is true of othernew culturalisttheoriesin securitystudies. Dana
Eyre and Mark Suchman concede that theirdata about the global patternsof
arms acquisitions support realist predictions.113 Michael Barnett'sclaim that
"given the absence of an immediatethreat. .. identitywill factorinto a state's
choice of ally" is also consistentwith realism.114 In short,many of the new
culturalists'interpretations
and predictionsabout particularcases turnout to
be indistinguishablefromthose ofrealists.Because theseare not "crucial cases"
that directlytest realistand culturalisttheorieshead-to-head,it is difficultto
ascertainwhich are superior.
DISPUTABLE CASES
In a number of cases the new culturalists'interpretationsdifferdramatically

fromrealisttheories,but theyare also highlydebatable. For example, Richard
Price and Nina Tannenwald argue that the "odium attached" to the use of
chemical weapons largely accounts for theirlack of use.115 Withoutthis normative proscription,theybelieve it likelythatchemical weapons would have
been widely used. "In the absence of the contextestablishedby this international norm and the thresholdsset thereby,"Price suggests,"World War II in
all likelihoodwould have been a chemicalwar."116Despite general abhorrence
of chemical weapons, mutual deterrenceand their lack of militaryutility
provide more convincingexplanationsforwhy theywere not used more often.
Specifically,chemicalweapons were useful only against unprepared adversaries or civilians,it was relativelyeasy for prepared troops to defend against
them, and they complicated offensiveoperations. These factors,ratherthan
normativeproscriptions,best explain why chemicalweapons were not used in
112. On this,see Don M. Alexander,"Repercussionsof theBreda Variant,"FrenchHistoricalStudies,
Vol. 8, No. 3 (Spring 1974), p. 488; Deighton,Blitzkrieg,
pp. 172-173; and Field Marshal Erich von
Manstein,Lost Victories:
The WarMemoirsofHitler'sMost BrilliantGenerals(Novato, Calif.:Presidio
Press, 1994), pp. 101-102, 126.
113. Eyre and Suchman,"Status,Norms, and the Proliferationof ConventionalWeapons," pp. 97,
106-107.
114. Barnett,"Identityand Alliances in the Middle East," p. 410.
115. Price and Tannenwald,"Norms and Deterrence,"p. 120.
116. Price,The ChemicalWeaponsTaboo,p. 100.

International
Security23:1 | 164
combat more extensivelyin World War 11.117Furthermore,Price and Tannenwald face the problemof explainingwhy normsof nonuse beforeWorldWar I
did not preventmassive use duringthe war or why normspreventedtheAxis
powers fromusing chemicalwarfareagainst Allied militaryforces,but did not
prevent theiruse against unarmed civilians (the Jews) and troops withouta
retaliatorycapability (the Chinese and the Ethiopians).118Norms against the
use of chemicalweapons existedin the interwarera, as theyhad beforeWorld
War I, but these norms reflected,ratherthan shaped, a strategicrealitydetermined largely by the utility(or lack thereof)of chemical weapons and by
mutual deterrence.More recently,Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the
Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War and unarmed Kurdish civilians, but not
against the United States during the Persian Gulf War,is also most convincinglyaccounted forby deterrenceand utilityarguments.The Iranians and the
Iraqi Kurds had no retaliatorycapacity and scant chemical and biological
warfare (CBW) defensive capability,and so Iraq's use of chemical weapons
made some strategicsense. Conversely,theUnited Statesand its coalitionallies
had both robustCBW defensivecapability,and a huge arsenal of weapons of
mass destructionwith which to retaliate,and so it made littlestrategicsense
forthe Iraqis to use CBW.119
Robert Herman's argumentthat the Cold War ended because the Soviets
were attractedto Western norms and culture is plausible, but alternative
Some analystsattributethe changes
explanationsare even more compelling.120
in Soviet thinkingprimarilyto the factthat the nuclear revolutionmade the
world defense dominant; others argue that Soviet militaryfears of losing a
arms race facilitatedMikhail Gorbachev'sreforms.121Herman
high-technology
117. John Ellis Van Courtland Moon, "Chemical Weapons and Deterrence: The World War II
Experience,"International
Security,
Vol. 8, No. 4 (Spring 1984), pp. 3-35; BartonJ.Bernstein,"Why
We Didn't Use Poison Gas in WorldWar II," AmericanHeritage,Vol. 36, No. 5 (August/September
1995), pp. 40-45; and FredericJ.Brown, ChemicalWarfare:
A Studyin Restraint(Westport,Conn.:
Greenwood, 1968), p. 37.
118. PatrickE. Tyler,"Germ War,a CurrentWorld Threat,Is a RememberedNightmarein China,"
New YorkTimes,February4, 1997, p. 6.
119. Atkinson,Crusade,p. 87
120. For a prescientgeopolitical argumentabout the inevitablecollapse of the Soviet Union, see
Randall Collins,"Long-termSocial Change and the Territorial
Power of States,"in Louis Kriesberg,
ed., Researchin SocialMovements,Conflicts,
and Change,vol. 1 (Greenwich,Conn.: JAIPress, 1978),
pp. 1-34.
121. Kenneth A. Oye, "Explaining the End of the Cold War: Morphological and Behavioral
Adaptations to the Nuclear Peace?" in Lebow and Risse-Kappen,International
RelationsTheoryand
theEnd oftheCold War,pp. 57-84; Gaddis, "Hanging Tough Paid Off,"pp. 11-14; and Michael C.
Desch, "Why the Soviet MilitarySupported Gorbachev and Why the Russian MilitaryMightOnly
SupportYeltsinfora Price,"Journal
ofStrategicStudies,Vol. 16, No. 4 (December 1993),pp. 455-489.

CultureClash| 165
is also unable to account forsubsequent Russian realpolitikbehavior more in

accord with the realistexpectationof unrelentinggreatpower competition.122
In a similarvein, Thomas Risse-Kappen portraysNATO as an alliance based
on shared "republican liberalism,"ratherthan one based on a common perceptionof threat.123The difficulty
Risse-Kappen facesis to explain how illiberal
states such as Greece and Turkeyremained in the alliance. Common ideology
or cultureamong the NATO statesmay have been coincidental,because many
influentialpolicymakersin the United Statesand otherWesternstateshad few
qualms during the Cold War in allying with illiberal states in other areas of
the world.124 This, however,is not a puzzle foran alliance theorythat anticipates alignmentbased on mutual interestratherthan on common ideology.125
PREMATURE CASES
Finally,there are a few cases employed by the new culturalistsin security

studies where it is just too early to tell what the outcome will be. Thomas
Berger,and Peter Katzensteinand Noburu Okawara, thinkthat German and
Japanese political cultures have changed irrevocably from militaristicto
pacifistic."Germany and Japan,"Bergerclaims, "as a resultof theirhistorical
experiences and the way in which those experiences were interpretedby
domestic political actors,have developed beliefs and values that make them
There are, however,compeculiarlyreluctantto resortto the use of force."126
pelling internationalstructuralexplanations for this change in German and
Japanese political cultures: specifically,their defeat in World War II, Allied
occupation,and the protectiveumbrella of the U.S. securityguarantee.Thereforethe real testof these culturalargumentswill come in the future,especially
ifU.S. commitmentsto NATO and Japanwane. Bergerultimatelyconcedes the
realist argument that "Japan's anti-militarismin its present form could not
survive both a weakening of its alliance with the United States and the emerIt is thereforetoo soon to tell
gence of a new regional securitythreat."127
122. Alexei K. Pushkov, "Russia and America: The Honeymoon's Over," ForeignPolicy,No. 93
(Winter1993/94), pp. 77-90; and Bruce D. Porterand Carol R. Saivetz, "The Once and Future
Empire: Russia and the 'Near Abroad,"' WashingtonQuarterly,Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer 1994),
pp. 75-90.
123. Risse-Kappen, "Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO,"
pp. 357-399.
124. Kirkpatrick,"Dictatorshipsand Double Standards,"pp. 34-45.
125. Stephen M. Walt,The OriginsofAlliances(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1987).
126. Berger,"Norms, Identity,and National Securityin Germanyand Japan,"in Katzenstein,The
Culture
ofNationalSecurity,
p. 318.
127. Berger,"From Sword to Chrysanthemum,"quotation on p. 120; see also pp. 147-148.

Security23:1 | 166
International
whetherJapanese and German political cultureshave changed for good, but

thereare persuasive nonculturalexplanations for the culturalchanges of the
Cold War,and thereis some evidence thatGermanyand Japanmay revertto a
more traditionalgreatpower strategicculturein the post-Cold War era. Ironically,some of these pessimisticviews are also based on culturalvariables.128
The new culturalistsbelieve that they have chosen "hard cases" for their
theoriesjust because theyfocus on national securityissues.129 But what makes
a case a "crucial test" and a "hard case" is (1) whetherthe competingtheories
make differentpredictions about its outcome, and (2) whether one theory
should be expected to do betterat predictingit than another.Issue area, by
itself,does not make a case hard or easy. What does is whether the theory
actually makes determinativepredictionsabout the particularcase. Although
not as obviously wrong as the Cold War wave, the failureof the post-Cold
War wave of strategicculture to choose "hard cases" for theirtheoriesdoes
not inspire high confidencein some of its proponents'claims to supplant the
realistresearchprogram.
in
How CultureMightSupplement
ExistingTheories
NationalSecurity
As a supplement to existing theories,cultural theories have at least three
contributionsto make. First,cultural variables may explain the lag between
structuralchange and alterationsin state behavior.Second, theymay account
forwhy some statesbehave irrationallyand sufferthe consequences of failing
to adapt to the constraintsof the internationalsystem.Finally,in structurally
indeterminatesituations,domestic variables such as culturemay have a more
independentimpact.
Culturalist arguments can supplement existing theories by providing an
explanation of the lag between structuralchange and alterationsin state behavior.130 For instance,during the Cold War both the United States and the
128. See Jacob Heilbrun, "Germany's New Right," ForeignAffairs,
Vol. 75, No. 6 (November/
December 1996),pp. 80-89; Alan Cowell, "Pro-Nazi Incidentsin GermanArmyRaise Alarm,"New
YorkTimes,November 5, 1997, p. 4; "The Man Japan Wants to Forget,"Economist,
November 11,
1995, pp. 85-86; and Henry Scott Stokes, "Lost Samurai: The WitheredSoul of Postwar Japan,"
Harper's,October 1985,pp. 55-63. A brilliantexaminationof the dark side of the Japanesepostwar
cultureof pacifismis Ian Buruma, The WagesofGuilt:Memoriesof Warin Germanyand Japan(New
York: Farrar,Straus,Giroux,1994).
129. Katzenstein,"Introduction,"and "Conclusion," pp. 11, 523.
130. Berger,"Norms, Identity,and National Securityin Germany and Japan," p. 329, discusses
how culturemightcause lag effects.It is importantto keep in mind thatothernonculturalfactors
mightcause lag effectstoo.

CultureClash| 167
Soviet Union were models of civilian controlof the military.131With the end
of the Cold War,evidence is accumulatingthatcivilian controlof the military
in both of the formerCold War antagonists has weakened.132Brian Taylor
offersa very convincingargumentthatresidual norms of militarysubordination to civilian controlhave kept the Russian militaryfromlaunching a coup
or otherwise interveningmore directlyin Russian politics.133 Taylor's organizational culture argument,however, has trouble accounting for the relative
weakening of Russian civilian controlof the militarycompared with the firm
civilian control of the Soviet militaryduring the Cold War that he documents.31M
As a supplement to existingtheories,cultureworks well; but on its
own, culturecannot supplant them.
Cultural variables may also explain why some states act contraryto the
structuralimperatives of the internationalsystem. Structurenever directly
determinesoutcomes; rather,it operates through a variety of mechanisms:
socialization,emulation,and competition.KennethWaltz suggests that states
are not forcedto adopt any particularpatternof behavior by the international
structure.Rather,observingthatotherstatesthatconformtheirbehavior to the
structureof the internationalsystemdo betterin competitionwithotherstates,
states will gradually learn to do so as well. Waltz succinctlysummarizes his
131. Samuel P.Huntington,PoliticalOrderin ChangingSocieties(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1968), p. 194; Allan Millett,TheAmericanPoliticalSystemand CivilianControloftheMilitary:
A HistoricalPerspective
(Columbus: Mershon Center,Ohio State University,April 1979), p. 38; and
Condoleeza Rice, "The Party,the Military,and Decision Authorityin the Soviet Union," World
Politics,Vol. 60, No. 1 (October 1987), pp. 80-81.
132. I make this argument in detail in Michael C. Desch, Civilian Controlof the Military:The
For
(Baltimore,Md.: JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,forthcoming).
ChangingSecurityEnvironment
furtherevidence ofrecentchanges in civiliancontrolofthemilitaryin theUnited Statesand Russia,
see Russell F. Weigley,"The AmericanMilitaryand the Principleof Civilian ControlfromMcClellan to Powell," JournalofMilitaryHistory,Vol. 57, No. 5 (Special Issue, October 1993), pp. 27-58;
Andrew J.Bacevich,"Clinton'sMilitaryProblem-and Ours," NationalReview,December 13, 1993,
pp. 36-40; Richard H. Kohn, "Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-MilitaryRelations," National
Interest,
No. 35 (Spring 1994), pp. 3-17; RichardH. Kohn "UpstartsIn Uniform,"New YorkTimes,
Vol. 97,
April 10, 1994, p. 19; Edward N. Luttwak,"Washington'sBiggest Scandal," Commentary,
No. 5 (May 1994), pp. 29-33; Colonel Charles J.Dunlap, Jr.,"Welcome to the Junta:The Erosion
of Civilian Control of the U.S. Military,"WakeForestLaw Review,Vol. 29, No. 2 (Summer 1994),
pp. 341-392; Mikhail Tsypkin,"Will the MilitaryRule Russia?" SecurityStudies,Vol. 2, No. 1
(Autumn 1992),pp. 38-73; StephenFoye,"Post-SovietRussia: Politicsand theNew Russian Army,"
RadioFreeEurope/Radio
LibertyResearchReport,Vol. 1, No. 33 (August 21, 1992), pp. 5-12; Thomas
overSovietNationalSecurity,1917-1992 (Ithaca,
M. Nichols, The SacredCause: Civil-Military
Conflict
N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1993); and KimberlyMartin Zisk, "Civil-MilitaryRelations in the
New Russia," OccasionalPaper (Columbus: Mershon Center,Ohio State University,March 1993).
133. Brian D. Taylor,"Culture and Coups: The Norm of Civilian Supremacy,"unpublished manuscript,JohnM. Olin InstituteforStrategicStudies, Harvard University,February1996.
134. Brian D. Taylor,"The Russian Militaryin Politics: Civilian Supremacy in Comparative and
HistoricalPerspective,"Ph.D. dissertation,MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology,September1997,
Table 1-5.

International
Security23:1 | 168
argument:"The theoryexplains why states similarlyplaced behave similarly

despite theirinternaldifferences."135
Realists such as Waltz expect that states
in roughlysimilarstructuralpositionsshould act similarlyiftheyare to survive
and prosper.136 Kenneth Pollack makes a compelling case that Arab political
cultureunderminesthe abilityof Arab armies to successfullyconduct modern
armored warfare.137However, given that the Arabs consistentlysufferedas a
resultof theirinabilityto conductarmoredwarfare,thisculturalisttheorydoes
not challenge realist arguments about the consequences of their failure to
successfullyemulate the dominant powers.138 Only if the Arabs had consistentlydone well in armored warfare,despite theirdistinctdomestic political
culture,could culturalisttheoriesplausibly claim to supplant realist theories
by explainingboth behavior and outcomes. Pollack's argumentthereforesupplements,but does not supplant, existingtheories.
Finally,as Waltz suggests: "One must ask how and to what extent the
structureof a realm accounts for outcomes."139Structuretends to establish
parameters;actual outcomes are sometimesdeterminedby otherfactors.This
makes the competitionbetween culturaland rationalisttheoriesless sweeping
but also more intense.In structurallyindeterminateenvironments,culturalist
and realist theories oftenmake similar predictionsabout state behavior and
internationaloutcomes; thus the crucial cases fordeciding between them will
be in structurallydeterminateenvironments.
The major issue of contentionwill be how often structureis or is not
determinate.Realists maintainthatstructureis frequentlydeterminate,and so
it makes sense to begin with it; culturalistsargue thatmaterialstructureis so
oftenindeterminatethat it makes sense to begin with othervariables.140 This
135. Kenneth Waltz, "InternationalPolitics Is Not Foreign Policy," SecurityStudies,Vol. 6, No. 1
(Autumn 1996), p. 54.
136. Waltz,TheoryofInternational
Politics,pp. 74, 124-128. At different
pointsWaltz appears to base
his predictionofbehavioralisomorphismon threedifferent,
and perhaps mutuallyexclusive,types
of argument.At various points he relies on an evolutionaryselectionmechanism,socialization to
accepted internationalpractice,and learningthroughrationalassessmentof structuralconstraints.
Colin Elman, "Horses for Courses: Why Not Neo-Realist Theories of Foreign Policy?" Security
Studies,Vol. 6, No. 1 (Fall 1996), pp. 7-53, argues that although most scholars accept the rational
assessment model as the dominantreading,the otherstrandscontinueto draw adherents.
137. See Kevin Pollack, "The Influenceof Arab Culture on Arab MilitaryEffectiveness,"Ph.D.
dissertation,Massachusetts Instituteof Technology,February1996.
138. ScottSagan also makes this point in Sagan, "Culture,Strategy,and Selectionin International
Politics," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
Washington,D.C., August 28-31, 1997.
139. Waltz, TheoryofInternational
Politics,p. 78.
140. Katzenstein,CulturalNormsand NationalSecurity,p. 23; Kier,"Culture and FrenchMilitary
DoctrinebeforeWorld War II," p. 190; Herman, "Identity,Norms, and National Security,"p. 279;

CultureClash| 169
issue is importantinasmuch as realisttheoriesare likelyto accord significant

weightto cultureor any othertypeofvariable when structureis indeterminate.
In a determinatestructuralenvironment,where stateshave only one or at most
a few satisfactorystrategicchoices, realist theories expect culture to serve
mostly as a dependent or an interveningvariable that usually reflectsthe
structuralenvironment,changingslowly enough to cause a lag between structural change and changes in state behavior. In indeterminatestructuralenvironments,where states have many optimal choices, realist theoriesought to
have littletroubleaccordingculture,or any otherdomestic variable, a greater
independentrole in explainingstatebehavior.In CivilianControloftheMilitary,
I show how differentcombinations of domestic and internationalsecurity
threatsproduce more or less determinativestructuralenvironments.When a
state faces eitherexternalor internalthreats,structureis determinative;when
it faces both, or neither,structureis indeterminate.In such an indeterminant
threatenvironment,it is necessaryto look to othervariables to explain various
types of strategicbehavior.Culture and otherdomesticvariables may take on
greaterindependentexplanatorypower in these cases. The challengeforscholars interestedin internationalrelations and comparative politics is to determine when, under what conditions, and to what extent other structural
environments-or other,nonstructuralfactors-affectoutcomes.
Conclusions
The new cultural theoriesin securitystudies show some promise of supplementingrealisttheoriesby explaininglags between structuralchange and state
behavior, accounting for deviant state behavior, and explaining behavior in
structurallyindeterminateenvironments.Thus thereis no doubt that culture
mattersand thatthe returnto thinkingabout culturalvariables will make some
contributionto our understandingof post-Cold War internationalsecurity
issues. For these and other reasons, the thirdwave of literatureon strategic
culturewill be widely read and should stimulatemuch productivedebate.
The problem is thatsome new culturalistsin securitystudies, like many of
the old culturalistsin otherfields,141claim too much forculturalexplanations.
By themselves,culturalvariables do not provide much additional explanatory
and Berger,"Norms,Identity,and National Securityin Germanyand Japan,"p. 325. But elsewhere,
Katzenstein,CulturalNormsand NationalSecurity,
pp. 4-5, concedes thatstructurecan sometimes
be quite constraining.
141. See Elkins and Simeon, "A Cause in Search of Its Effect,"p. 127.

International
Security23:1 1170
power. The Cold War wave was largelydiscredited.The post-Cold War wave
is not fullypersuasive because it relies on cases that do not provide much
evidence of its abilityto supplant realism.In short,thenew strategicculturalist
theorieswill not supplant realisttheoriesin national securitystudies because,
by themselves,theyhave very limitedexplanatorypower.
Many culturalistsseem to recognize this and so they turn out, in the final
analysis, to be ambivalent about how much independent explanatorypower
culturalvariables have in securitystudies. Most new culturalistswould agree
with Jeffrey
Legro that "cultures are . . . not mere weather vanes to environmental forces or strategicrationality."142
Rather,they are oftenindependent
variables. But elsewhereLegro admits that"realitycan be sociallyconstructed,
but only with available materialsand withinexistingstructures.... However,
when the contradictionbetween externalconditions and cultural tendencies
becomes too great,culturewill likelyadapt."'143On thispoint,many othernew
culturalistsare equivocal: Elizabeth Kier,forexample, concludes that"culture
has (relative) causal autonomy."1'44
Although everyone agrees that culture
matters,the criticalquestion is how much independentexplanatorypower it
has. We can answer thatquestion only when we have a clear sense of whether
cultureis oftenan independent causal variable (as most culturalistsbelieve)
or mostly an interveningor dependent variable (as realist theories would
maintain).
The empirical trackrecord of strategicculturesuggests caution about how
much of strategicbehavior is explained exclusively by cultural variables.
Thereforewe should not abandon realisttheoriesin favorof the new culturalism in securitystudies. Of course,when realisttheoriesare found wanting,we
should supplementthemwith new culturalisttheories;however,thiswill turn
out to be the case less oftenthan the new culturalistssuggest. In sum, while
we should applaud the returnto culturein securitystudies,we should not be
swept away by this latestwave.
142. Legro, "MilitaryCulture and InadvertentEscalation in World War II," p. 116.
underFire,p. 231. Also cf.p. 25.
144. Kier,"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorld War II," p. 187.


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Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies

Author(s): Michael C. Desch

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long enjoyeda prominent

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science history.The best case thatcan be made forthese new culturaltheories

GermanRestraintduringWorldWar II (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1995); Alastair lain

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This content downloaded from 128.239.123.173 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 14:28:01 PM

of thetimethereversewill be true.16All maintainthatculturalvariablesare

Much of the discussionof how to deal withtheAxis powersduringWorld

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number of leading culturalanthropologists,includingGeoffreyBateson, Ruth

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tentionis paid to the local contexts."23

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would give the

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35. See Rick Atkinson,Crusade:The UntoldStoryofthePersianGulfWar(Boston:Houghton Mifflin,

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The post-Cold War renaissanceof interestin culturein securitystudies also

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"culture" had lost all conceptual clarity.54

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assert that ideas, not materialfactors,best account forparticularoutcomes,a

60. Kier,"Culture and FrenchMilitaryDoctrinebeforeWorld War II," p. 203.

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externalrationalism(which makes behavior predictableacross cases).65If that

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progressis markedless by a perfection

both,at theextremecomingdown to a moresophisticated

and KennethPaul Erickson,

York:HarperCollins,1991), p. 7, notes Harold Lasswell's claim thatscientificanalysis is "unavoidably comparative."

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preeminentantimodernistand modernist,respectively,in the general field of

Simon and Schuster,1996).

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Figure1. How Theoriesin NationalSecurityDiffer.

(4) Global culture

neorealism (Box 2) is a general theorythat uses the distributionof material

84. BarryR. Posen,TheSourcesofMilitary

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a varietyof issues.85Withone notable exception,86

Change,1950-1970 (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1979); AlbertBergesen,ed., Studiesofthe

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ideas make certainbehaviors "rational" by imposing costs and benefitsin the

89. lain Johnston'scomments on an earlier draft of this article played an importantrole in

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MOST LIKELY CASES

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the realistargument:realistsrecognizethatstateshave a hierarchyof interests,

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They would also anticipatethat German air strategywould be very different

Finally,Elizabeth Kier maintains that the French domestic political and

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to maintainthe offensivemilitarydoctrineit had in the 1920s into the 1930s.

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because it was also made by non-Frenchmenincluding the eminent British

In a number of cases the new culturalists'interpretationsdifferdramatically

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This content downloaded from 128.239.123.173 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 14:28:01 PM

is also unable to account forsubsequent Russian realpolitikbehavior more in