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Us Strategic Culture, Homeland Ballistic Missile Defense, And Mutual Vulnerability, Jacob T. Blank

MSU Graduate Theses

Strategic scholars have long understood the indispensable linkage between culture and security policymaking. By shaping the perceptions through which decision-makers formulate security policy, strategic culture analysis adds vital context to the perilously difficult science of understanding and predicting state security outputs. One area where this analytical framework fails to generate the expected result is American missile defense policy. Salient themes of US strategic culture, including an optimistic and problem-solving mindset, positive role of machines, and ahistorical exceptionalism, are reflected in the American way of war – a technologically driven, leadership casualty averse, moralistic, apolitical, and firepower focused enterprise. These factors …