ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 is dedicated to the application of cleavage theory to the field of security studies and grand strategy in the footsteps of Rosenau and Holsti, an area upon which only a small group of scholars had ever tried to apply such an approach. Due to its emphasis on the semi-permanent or slow-to change nature of its constituting “lines of conflict” it seems to be well suited for the as deeply rooted strategic traditions or subcultures introduced in Chapter 2. Thus, the result of this merging of cleavage theory with international relations paradigms has been the formulation of two semi-permanent ideational elite cleavages. After the definition, in terms of a heuristic instrument, of the “normative grand strategy” cleavage (the outside dimension) with its two basic assumptions on the “role of war” and the “nature of threat,” the cross-cutting “cultural identity” cleavage (the inside dimension) with its two assumptions regarding the “status of territoriality” and the “significance of history” has also been discussed. By combining these two “structuring instruments” the working of the “subculture-cleavage model of grand strategic thought” had been detailed.
