ABSTRACT
The field of security studies has been underpinned in the post-Cold War era by two similarly ‘fuzzy’ concepts: ‘grand strategy’ and ‘strategic culture’. There are thought to be three main epistemological differences between ‘grand strategy’ and ‘strategic culture’. First, whilst ‘grand strategy’ encompasses both wartime and peacetime rationalizations, including deterrence and alliance-building, ‘strategic culture’ more narrowly connotes a nation’s attitude to waging war. Secondly, whilst historians were from the very beginning contributing to ‘grand strategy’ debates, ‘strategic culture’ initially was geared towards a better understanding of Soviet nuclear weapon thinking. Thirdly, whilst the academic literature in the West on ‘grand strategy’ had emerged from studies of Early Modern Europe partly reaching out to East Asia only much later, the same literature on ‘strategic culture’ in the West has in no small measure taken off following the publication of Alastair Iain Johnston magisterial book on China in 1995. This Chapter will critically review the scholarly debates to date on Chinese ‘strategic culture’ and Johnston’s work by way of tracing out the state of the field. Secondly, drawing on pre-modern sources, it will present evidence on Chinese attitudes to violence and war-aversion that have not yet been considered in the context of those debates.
