Ken Booth’s study, first published in 1979, investigates the way in which cultural distortions have affected the theory and execution of strategy. Its aim is to illustrate the importance of ethnocentrism in all areas of the subject, to follow through its implications and to suggest approaches to the different problems it poses.

Concepts --Propositions -- The assumptions of an ethnocentric profession -- Strategists and enemy images -- Professional predispositions -- Strategic history -- US and Soviet strategic doctrines -- The superpower arms race -- Detente : or peace and ill-will -- Arabs, Jews and outsiders -- Allies : know your friends -- Crisis : signaling without signal books -- Rationality : know his culture -- Strategic criteria : comparison is obligatory -- War is a continuation of ... what? -- Conceptions of the utility of force -- Word problems can be world problems -- International negotiation : words of action -- Force and the utility of ethnocentrism -- Authoritarianism and ethnocentrism -- Knowing the enemy -- Diplomacy and the disutility of ethnocentrism -- The narrow strategist's syllogism -- Capabilities verus intentions -- Worst-case forecasting -- The level-of-analysis problem -- The irreducible dilemma -- Victory is not success -- The inertia of an ethnocentric profession -- The demise of the strategic man -- Towards strategic relativism -- Self-awareness in policy processes -- The greening of academic strategists -- Sentiment and security -- Pseudocorollaries and indecision -- Strategist for all seasons.