ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the strategic paradigm is rooted in ethnocentrism and that strategists are professional ethnocentric. The strategic paradigm contains an in-built ethnocentric perspective arising out of the nature of its practical aspects and because of the assumptions and ideology which inform its analytical and theoretical approaches. The grip of ethnocentrism is strengthened by a range of other factors, which affect individuals to a greater or lesser extent. Institutional factors shape an individual's thinking in a number of ways. Strategy is made in groups, and groups have pressures towards conformity. Professional socialization therefore might be expected to increase individual tendencies towards ethnocentrism. Enemy images help to clear up ambiguities. Intolerance of ambiguity is particularly strong for strategists, for the absence of an enemy undermines T. E. Lawrence's professional raison d'etre, perhaps in his own mind and certainly in the minds of unsophisticated critics and overburdened taxpayers.
