Over the past three decades, the concept of strategic culture has gradually gained support within the ranks of political scientists studying international relations, but it remains controversial and has attracted few followers outside of political science. During the same period the related but much older concept of national ways of warfare has gained general acceptance among military historians and analysts, but in a literature developed in isolation from the discourse on strategic culture. As an integrating survey and synopsis of these two bodies of literature, this book sets out to overcome the barriers between them and to open the debate by drawing on relevant studies from the fields of anthropology, sociology, and geography. It opens with a preliminary discussion of the central idea - primarily in its relationship to realist of neorealist theory - then proceeds with a geographical survey of the literature in chapters on Europe, the Americas, and Asia and Africa, before closing with a discussion of definitions of strategic culture. This book will be of much interest to students and researchers in political science, international relations, political and military history as well as strategic studies.

Transferred to digital printing 2009 with change of series title.

1Evolution of an idea 1 -- 2 Europe 14 -- 3 Americas 53 -- 4 Asia and Africa 78.