An inquiry into strategic culture: Chinese strategic thought, the parabellum paradigm and grand strategic choice in Ming China.

Abstract

This dissertation assesses the value of strategic culture as an explanation for grand strategic choice. The empirical question is two-fold: Is there a substantively consistent and temporally persistent Chinese strategic culture, and if so to what extent has this influenced China's responses to external 'threats'? For methodological reasons the empirical focus is on the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The dissertation develops procedures for testing for the existence and influence of strategic culture. The first stage examines ancient military texts as sources of Chinese strategic culture. I use cognitive mapping, symbolic analysis and congruence tests to determine whether there is enough consistency in grand strategic preferences across these texts to constitute a strategic culture. The second stage applies similar techniques to determine the effect of this strategic culture on the strategic preferences of Ming decision makers. The third stage uses both anecdotal and aggregate data to assess the effect of these strategic culture-derived preferences on changing levels of coerciveness in Ming policy towards the Mongol 'threat'. The dissertation finds that a dominant strategic culture does exist, but that it is a parabellum one, similar to the realpolitik tradition in Western strategic thought. Given a zero-sum conception of conflict with the enemy, the preferred strategy is predominantly offensive. The least preferred is accommodation. This preference is mediated by a concept of absolute flexibility which is sensitive to changing relative capabilities, such that there is an direct relationship between coerciveness in strategic choice and relative capability. Overlying this parabellum strategic culture is a symbolic Confucian-Mencian strategic culture which plays some role in justifying decisions in culturally acceptable terms. I also find that Ming thinking on security policy reflected this parabellum strategic culture. The data indicate that a significant portion of Ming strategic behavior is consistent with the behavioral predictions of the parabellum strategic culture. These findings challenge dominant interpretations of traditional Chinese strategic thought. The results suggest that strategic culture can exist, but that there may be few cross-national differences. Still, there is a theoretical possibility that non-parabellum strategic cultures exist in other societies.