ASCO Publications

The Comparative Strategic Cultures Curriculum Project is Phase II of an ASCO effort to explore approaches of leveraging strategic culture analyses to understanding WMD behavior. This report includes a collection of commissioned essays and case studies that examine the field of strategic culture and assess its applicability as a methodological approach to understanding decisions to acquire, proliferate, or use weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or abide by or violate international norms regarding WMD. Cases examined include the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, Syria, North Korea, and al Qaeda. Essays address the past and future of the field of strategic culture, to include possible uses to inform the development of national security policy, provide a primer on WMD and proliferation, and contribute literature reviews and a syllabus suitable for a upper-division undergraduate (or equivalent) course on the topic. These materials are intended to be available to interested faculty members at military and civilian colleges and universities who wish to develop a course on strategic culture."