Comparative Strategic Culture Monterey, California, September 21-22, 2005 Conference organized by the Center for Contemporary Conflict, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School for the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Conference Report by Ms. Elizabeth L. Stone , Dr. Christopher P. Twomey , and Dr. Peter R. Lavoy For a printable version of this report, please click here . For a schedule of the conference, please click here . Introduction There is enormous intuitive appeal to the idea that, if “culture matters” at some general level, then it must also be important in shaping national security processes and outcomes. There is an extensive academic literature on this issue—often called “strategic culture”—and it serves as a sort of “folk theorem” that practitioners and casual observers of foreign affairs find compelling. Beyond that, the potential impact of arguments related to strategic culture is tremendous. If culture is a central determinant of strategic behavior, then ahistorical and global theories like “offensive realism” and “neo-liberalism” are inappropriate for understanding foreign policy.[1 ] Those theories claim that countries in similar strategic or institutional settings will act similarly, regardless of their strategic culture. Similarly, core components of current American foreign policy—the universal attraction of democracy and the utility of deterrent threats in general (to pick just two)—are misguided. Rather, these factors will vary considerably in their applicability to different countries depending on their strategic culture. Despite the publication of many path-breaking books and scholarly articles on the subject of strategic culture, the research in this area has not cumulated into a coherent, productive field of study. The lack of cumulation is often the result of authors employing often very different conceptions of strategic culture and applying them to a single case study. For instance, the seminal work in this field is a study of Soviet strategic culture in key organizations as it pertains to nuclear affairs.[2 ] In contrast, a recent addition to the literature examines the role of deeply held national culture as it shapes broad beliefs about the efficacy of force in China.[3 ] The challenge posed by this lack of cumulation notwithstanding, with renewed policy interest in discerning the motivations and related sources of behavior of hard-to-understand countries such as North Korea, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, India, and China, it is time to take a new look at comparative strategic culture. To assess the state of the field of strategic cultural studies, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) organized a workshop on Comparative Strategic Culture