Cultural Analysis and International Security

Preparation of this paper was supported in part by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund, which I gratefully acknowledge. Earlier versions of this paper were read at the 1987 annual meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chicago, Illinois, and of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois. For their comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I thank Sol Tax, Janet D. Perloff, Mary Anna Thornton, and Jeffrey J. Ward.

Academic writing in the international security area includes work conducted under a variety of disciplinary names including: “national security studies,” “international affairs,” and “strategic studies.” Although there are some differences in approach all share commitment to the “realist” approach to international affairs outlined by H. Morgenthau and K. Thompson, in Principles and Problems of International Politics (New York: Knopf, 1956). Therefore, in this paper I use these terms interchangeably. See also W. Schwartz and C. Derber “Arms Control: Misplaced Focus,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 42, 1986, pp. 39–44.

Rubinstein R.A. , “The Collapse of Strategy: Understanding Ideological Bias in Policy Decisions,” in Foster M. L. Rubinstein R. A. (editors), Peace and War: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1986), pp. 343–351.

Booth K. , Strategy and Ethnocentrism (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979).

Foster M.L. Rubinstein R.A. (editors), Peace and War: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, op cit, note 3.

Beeman W.O. , “Conflict and Belief in American Foreign Policy,” in Peace and War: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, op cit, note 3.

Pacey A. , The Culture of Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983).

Hamburg D.A. , “New Risks of Prejudice, Ethnocentrism, and Violence,” Science, 1986, 231, 533.

Melman S. , Profits Without Production (New York: Knopf, 1983); and S. Melman, “The War-Making Institutions,” in Peace and War: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, op cit, note 3.

Knudsen B.B. , “The Paramount Importance of Cultural Sources: American Foreign Policy and Comparative Foreign Policy Research Reconsidered,” paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research Joint Session of Workshops, Amsterdam, April 10–15, 1987.

Korany B. , “Strategic Studies and the Third World: A Critical Evaluation,” International Social Science Journal, No. 110, 1986, pp. 546–562.

Ball D. , “Toward a Critique of Strategic Nuclear Targeting,” in Ball D. Richelson J. (editors), Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 15–32.

Kuhn T.S. , The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); and T.S. Kuhn, “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?” in Lakatos I. Musgrave A. (editors), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 1–23.

Rubinstein R.A. , “Epidemiology and Anthropology: Notes on Science and Scientism,” Communication and Cognition, Vol. 17, 1984, pp. 163–185.

I place quotes around “political realism” because from an anthropological perspective this view is not realistic. Rubinstein R. A. Tax S. , “Power, Powerlessness and the Failure of ‘Political Realism,’” in Brøsted J. Dahl J. Gray A. Gulløv H. Hendriksen G. Jørgensen J. Kleivan I. (editors) Native Power: The Quest for Autonomy and Nationhood of Indigenous Peoples (Bergen: Universitetforlaget AS, 1985) pp. 301–308.

Kim S. S. , The Quest for a Just World Order (Boulder: Westview, 1983); op cit, note 6; and op cit, note 11.

Ibid..

Myrdal G. , Objectivity in Social Research (Middletown, CN: Wesleyan University Press, 1969).

Simon H. , Reason in Human Affairs (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983).

Op cit, note 16.

Kehoe A.B. , “Fourth World Responses to External Threats: The Dené,” in Rubinstein R. A. Foster M. L. (editors), The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988).

Op cit, note 15.

Bateson M.C. , “Compromise and the Rhetoric of Good and Evil,” in The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict, op cit, note 21; and op cit, note 6.

Potter J.M. , “The Communist Ethic and the Spirit of China's Party Cadre,” in The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict, op cit, note 21.

Mendlovitz S. (editor), On the Creation of a Just World Order (New York: The Free Press, 1975); R. Falk, and S. Kim (editors), The War System: An Interdisciplinary Approach (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980); and R. Falk, S. Kim, and S. Mendlovitz (editors), Toward a Just World Order, Vol. 1 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1982).

Morgenthau H. , Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th edition (New York: Knopf, 1973); op cit, note 2; and R. Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (New York: Praeger, 1966).

Olson W. Onuf O. , “The Growth of a Discipline,” in Smith S. (editor), International Relations: British and American Perspectives (London: Basil Blackwell, 1985).

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Op cit, note 11.

Similar examples can be drawnn from Soviet strategic literature. The United States is used in this example simply because this information is more accessible.

US House of Representatives, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1978 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1977).

Kennedy M. Lewis L. , “On Keeping Them Down; or, Why Do Recovery Models Recover So Fast?,” in Ball D. Richelson J. , editors, Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986, pp. 194–208.

Op cit, note 12.

Op cit, note 6.

Op cit, note 23.

Treichel R. , Nuclear Attack Planning Base—1990 (Washington, DC: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1987).

Thompson S.L. Schneider S.H. , “Nuclear Winter Reappraised,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 64, 1986, pp. 981–1005.

Green O. Rubin B. Turok N. Webber P. Wilkinson G. , London After the Bomb: What a Nuclear Attack Really Means (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

Dirks R. , “Long-Term Effects of Famine on Human Societies,” in Bumstead M. P. (editor) Nuclear Winter: The Anthropology of Human Survival: Proceedings of a Session at the 84th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 6, 1985, Washington, DC (Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos National Laboratory Document LA-UR-86-370, 1985, pp. 11–19; Dirks, “Social Responses During Severe Food Shortages and Famine,” Current Anthropology, No. 21, 1980, pp. 21–32; C.D. Laughlin, “Deprivation and Reciprocity,” Man, Vol. 9, 1974, pp. 380–396; C.D. Laughlin, and I. Brady (editors) Extinction and Survival in Human Populations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); and R.A. Rubinstein, “Reciprocity and Resource Deprivation Among the Urban Poor in Mexico City,” Urban Anthropology, Vol. 4, 1975, pp. 251–264.

Turnbull C. , “The Ik: Alias the Teuso,” Uganda Journal, Vol. 31, 1967, pp. 63–71; C. Turnbull, The Mountain People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972); and C. Turnbull, “Rethinking the Ik: A Functional Non-Social System,” in C.D. Laughlin and I. Brady, editors, Extinction and Survival in Human Populations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978) pp. 49–75.

Age grades are part of a form of social organization in which groups of people of similar age fulfill distinct and different roles in their society according to the age that is attained. Typically, members of an age grade maintain close ties throughout their lives.

Ibid..

Laughlin , op cit, note 39.

Bishop C. , “Cultural and Biological Adaptations to Deprivation: The Northern Ojibwa Case,” in Laughlin C. D. Brady I. (editors) Extinction and Survival in Human Populations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978) pp. 208–230.

Sahlins M. , “On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange,” in Banton M. (editor) The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology (London: Tavistock, 1965), pp. 139–236.

Lomnitz L. , “The Uses of Fear: ‘Porro’ Gangs in Mexico,” in Peace and War: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, op cit, note 3.

Op cit, note 39.

Torry W.I. , “Anthropological Studies in Hazardous Environments: Past Trends and New Horizons,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 20, 1979, pp. 517–529; and op cit, note 39.

Dirks , op cit, note 39.

Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (New York: Basic Books, 1981).

Peattie L. , “Normalizing the Unthinkable,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1984, pp. 32–36.

Foster M.L. , “Expanding the Anthropology of Peace and Conflict,” in The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict, op cit, note 3.

Britan G. Cohen R. (editors) Hierarchy and Society: Anthropological Perspectives on Bureaucracy (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1980); M. Melko, “The Termination of Peace as a Consequence of Institutionalization,” in M. Nettleship, R.D. Given, and A. Nettleship (editors) War: Its Causes and Correlates (The Hague: Mouton, 1974) pp. 549–558; J. Justice, Policies, Plans, and People: Culture and Health Development in Nepal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); and op cit, note 14.

Foster M.L. , Suggestions from Anthropology for Increasing International Understanding, paper presented at the 153rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 18, 1987.

Pulliam L. , “Achieving Social Competence in the Navy Community,” in The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict, op cit, note 3; R.A. Rubinstein, Ritual Process and Images of the Other in Arms Control Negotiations, Human Peace 6(2): 3–7 and R.A. Rubinstein, C.D. Laughlin, and J. McManus, Science as Cognitive Process: Toward an Empirical Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984).

Lakoff G. Johnson M. , Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

Brasset D. , “Values and the Exercise of Power: Military Elites,” in The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict, op cit, note 3; and C. Cohn, “Slick'ems, Glick'ems, Christmas Trees, and Cookie Cutters: Nuclear Language and How We Learn to Pat the Bomb,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 43, No. 5, 1987, pp. 17–24.

William Broad presents a similar, though journalistic, account of how world-view shifts in response to the use of nuclear language, Star Warriors: A Penetrating Look Into the Lives of the Young Scientists Behind our Space Age Weaponry (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985).

Op cit, note 12.

Op cit, note 32.