Changing international environment and new threats. Opportunity for a European strategic culture? The international environment is going through a period of major upheaval. Terrorism, the growing influence of emerging powers and authoritarian regimes, and the weakening of multilateralism contribute to the gradual deterioration of the world order and simultaneously represent a serious challenge to Europe. In the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the vulnerability of the European security architecture became especially apparent. This thesis aims to unfold how these changes were perceived and responded to by two major countries of the European Union: France and Germany. The main focus is on the perception of these changes, the security challenges and the relationship with Russia and its confrontational policy towards Europe and the surrounding areas. Furthermore, it deals with their perception of the changing foreign-policy priorities of the United States and the deepening of European cooperation in the field of security and defense policy. The analysis of the German and French discourse depicts their attitude and then compares their approach to the changing international landscape, thus answering the question of the compatibility of their respective strategic thinking.

Counterinsurgency warfare has had an ambiguous position in the American military tradition. After the Vietnam experience, the population-control-oriented doctrine of David Galula was almost forgotten. Current war of the United States of America in Afghanistan turned out to be a conflict where application of the doctrine comes in question. It is codified in the 2006 FM 3-24 counterinsurgency manual. The author of the thesis Spojené státy americké a protipovstalecký boj: Afghánistán asks a question whether the behavior of American armed forces in Afghanistan was in compliance with the COIN doctrine of David Galula. The author looks at the conflict through lens of Galula's eight counterinsurgency steps, as defined in his book Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. The author of the thesis looks for factors that could influence fulfilment of the steps and he gives the factors in perspective with American strategic culture, as defined in the thesis. The analysis shows that the fulfilment of Galula's eight steps has never occurred. Traditional military thinking partially locked successful adaptation of American armed forces to the environment of Afghanistan. However, the author comes to the discovery that in terms of strategic culture, there were some shifts in Afghanistan.

As neighboring countries, Norway and Sweden are often thought to be very similar. However, the countries' military industries have developed in very different directions. Norway has had a long-term military dependence on the US, and a defense-industrial strategy to avoid direct competition with allied industries. Sweden, on the other hand, has transitioned from being almost military independent to preferring the US as a strategic partner, while the Swedish defense industry still produces equipment that often competes directly with US systems. Previous research has shown a strong relationship between national security strategies on the one hand, and political decisions related to defense acquisition and the alignment of the military-industrial complex on the other. The purpose is to identify differences between Norway's and Sweden's strategic culture that has affected the military industry, intending to improve future collaboration. The problem is solved by a comparative analysis of the two presented case studies of Norway's and Sweden’s respective industrial defense complexes, which suggest that history and cultural roots significantly impact strategic choices. The thesis concludes that strategic culture can explain some observed national differences in the presented cases. Using strategic culture as an analytical tool may thus prove useful when studying national military-industrial complexes and identifying factors that influence strategic choices. Increased knowledge of the origins and nature of differences in military-industrial strategy provides better preconditions for international collaboration in the area. As a result, this thesis will hopefully contribute to improved future collaboration between countries such as Norway and Sweden, when engaged in combined defense acquisition projects.

Similar countries are often expected to respond to threats in similar ways. Nevertheless, in Europe alone, similar countries have responded significantly different to the threat of terrorism. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how strategic culture, based on five elements (dominant threat perception; core tasks of the armed forces; willingness to use force; civil-military relation, and public opinion) have influenced the role of the armed forces in domestic counterterrorism in Belgium and Sweden. Albeit previous research has addressed the role of the armed forces in domestic security and counterterrorism, it has not empirically conducted a systematic comparison of two countries with differing roles. Moreover, the theoretical explanations have been insufficient in explaining why some countries use their armed forces whilst others do not. Thus, by employing a comparative case study, utilizing a qualitative content analysis aimed at analysing strategic and defence documents, articles, and previous research, I sought to investigate how strategic culture have influenced the role of the armed forces in domestic counterterrorism between 2014-2020, something that has been largely neglected in previous research. The findings demonstrated differences in all five elements, indicating that strategic culture likely influence the role of the armed forces in Sweden and Belgium.

Scholars tend to approach small states’ military strategies in terms of restraints and opportunities in the external security environment, largely overlooking the influences of a state’s domestic particularities. This thesis aims to explore how the theory of strategic culture, regarded here as an inherent, domestic context in which strategy is formulated, can add nuance to such realist analyses of how small states build and adjust their defence capabilities. Through a comparative case study design and a qualitative content analysis method, this thesis examines the adjustments in Denmark and Sweden’s military strategies following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the central similarities and distinctions between those. The influence of strategic culture on the respective states’ strategies is examined based on three foundational elements, dominant threat perception, approach to strategic partnerships, and geographical patterns and strategic exposure. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that the neorealist perspective of adjustments in small states’ military strategies can indeed be complemented with a view of the states’ unique strategic cultures, particularly with regard to the differences between the two empirical cases. Most notably, such a view allows for a deeper understanding of distinctions in the underlying rationales which guide the development, organisation and mission of the respective states’ Armed Forces.

The main aim of the final thesis is to assess American foreign and security policy during 2001 -- 2008 using concepts of security and strategic culture. Security and strategic culture (SSC) are rather new concepts in IR, but always more attention is paid to them. Poststructuralist conception was chosen as to be the main approach towards these concepts, since it enables to work with discursive actions of strategic and security elites. On the theoretical plane, concepts of SSC are elaborated and theoretically separated. The practical level scrutinizes how the SSC influenced the key decisions within examined period and what impact strategic and security elites had on changes of SSC. The last, assessing level, analyzes how the changes of the SSC identified on practical level, influenced American foreign and security policy and also main doctrinal documents. The main focus is on the attacks of 9/11 which had a great impact on such turbulent times, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which were fought in response to the above mentioned attacks, and changes of the foreign and security policy of the USA in the light of the unsuccessful Global War on Terror.

This thesis analyses Germany's commitment to multilateral military operations. Following the research question why Germany participates in some multilateral military operations but not in others, Germany's respective decision-making process regarding troop deployment in the DR Congo in 2006 on one hand and military non-engagement in Libya 2011 on the other hand is traced. By contrasting the concept of strategic culture with a purely rational assessment of the factors of alliance politics, risk-analysis and military feasibility of the operations, the decisiveness of taking into account Germany's strategic culture to explain deployment decisions is stressed. Neither is there a lack of external pressure for German military participation in the case of Libya, nor is the military operation in the DR Congo decisively less risky or militarily more feasible. Rather, Germany's multilateral and anti- militaristic strategic cultural strands affect its decision-making. Next to demanding a thorough justification and legitimization of any military engagement, two red lines for military deployment can be identified. First, Germany refuses to act unilaterally and displays a high reluctance towards military engagement outside the multilateral framework of the UN, NATO or EU. Secondly, Germany rejects to engage in...

Jan Beneš Strategic Culture of the Czech Republic Abstract The aim of the dissertation is to define in a complex manner the strategic culture of the Czech Republic. Strategic culture is at first analysed as a conceptual phenomenon both in relation to strategy itself and to the theories of international relations. The dissertation introduces the different streams of thought about strategic culture and then studies the approaches of the key involved authors with a special focus on the discussion between the first and the third generation of strategic culture scholars. Concerning the fact that the strategic culture has been originally created for the study of the behaviour and strategic thought of major powers, the author analyses the historical and geostrategic peculiarities of a small state in the Central Europe and then defines own conceptual and methodological framework. Using the method of grounded theory, the important symbols and narratives from the Czech history as well as the most important moments in the Czech political and strategic thought and decision-making are being examined. The historical narratives re-appear and influence the decision-making, thinking and argumentation of the key actors in the Czech security community. The research of the key decisions and historical moments after the 1989 is...

Aim of the thesis is to examine the influence of strategic culture on states and their most substantial decisions. The concept of strategic culture introduced first by Jack Snyder in the 1970s is today generally accepted, there are even warnings that culturalism may become too fashionable, indeed some authors say this is already happening. Most works however focus on strategic cultures of countries with long and rich history, historical experience and a great amount of various doctrinal documents - such as USA, Russia, China or India. My aim is to identify the influence of strategic culture in small countries, with a rather short period of independence - Finland and Czechoslovakia before World War II. They differ in one crucial decision: Czechoslovakia had decided to yield to German territorial demands, while Finland had decided not to do so and as a result faced a war against the Soviet Union. Hypothesis of this work is that this crucial difference is caused by different strategic cultures in the two contexts.

The phenomenon of strategic culture and its influence on the state behaviour has penetrated the theories of international relations only recently. The same stands for unmanned aerial vehicles. The aim of this thesis is to examine how does the United States deploy their UAVs to fight Al-Qaeda in its save heavens located in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. To be specific my intention is to determine what does in this sense the behavior of Obama's administration mean in the context of the U.S. strategic culture. The main research tools utilized in this thesis are discourse analysis and Colin Gray's model of strategic culture. In the public discourse consisting of speeches and comments made by political and military representatives I have identified all the four strategic culture variables set out in the theoretical part of the work. Moreover, the public discourse around drone deployment contains several intriguing metaphors and symbols. Furthermore, the contribution of this work is that it deals with the issue of UAV deployment within the scope of strategic culture. Keywords UAV; drones; strategic culture; Colin Gray; Alastair Johnston; Barack Obama; Al- Qaeda