Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

History

Committee Chair

James Siekmeier

Committee Co-Chair

Kerry Longhurst

Committee Member

Kerry Longhurst

Committee Member

Robert Blobaum

Abstract

From the Cold War until today, researchers and strategists have worked to find better ways of understanding the strategic decisions of other countries. Many diplomats and international decision makers subscribed to the idea that countries always acted rationally with a rational, cost-benefit analysis approach to problems that laid before them. Others, however, wished to explain the seemingly irrational actions countries have taken, and proposed that not all countries share the same objective values and goals. Academic authors and political strategists claimed that countries have Strategic Cultures, defined as frameworks that policy makers operate within where they are influenced by cultural norms and traditions formulated by their national communities. This thesis aims to evaluate the utility of Strategic Culture as an international security methodology through a case study of Poland’s Strategic Culture, along with relevant literature from, historians, military strategists, and relevant academic literature. What this thesis found was that the influencing symbols, traditions, identities, etc. that comprise a country’s Strategic Culture stem from an adopted historical narrative and that narrative not only helps researchers understand the irrational decisions a country makes, but also effects the decisions countries may make in the future. With these findings, the paper concludes that Strategic Culture has utility insofar as the researcher has adequate understanding of the dominant historical narrative the country they are analyzing has adopted.

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