Keele Research Repository

By developing a rigorous analytical framework, built on strategic subculture assumptions, this thesis contributes to the operationalization of strategic culture as an analytic perspective that can explain strategic behaviour. The thesis offers a taxonomy of Russian strategic culture after the Cold War, thus explaining Russia’s foreign policy priorities as a matter of strategic preferences of particular strategic subcultures. With Russian foreign policy towards Syria (1986-2016) as the case study, the thesis demonstrates how the ebb and flow of Russian strategic subcultures informed changes in Russian foreign policy outlook and priorities. This thesis argues that changes in Russia’s foreign policy towards Syria occurred as a consequence of shifts in Russian strategic culture, correlating at any given time in post-Cold War history to the predominance of one distinct strategic subculture over the rival ones. This thesis divided Russia’s strategic subcultures into two opposing clusters, consisting of three subcultures in each cluster. It found that for most of the Putin period, one particular strategic subculture, namely Russia’s Neo-Conservative Strategic Subculture, was the dominant strategic subculture and informed Russian foreign policy priorities in accordance with long-standing ideas and beliefs about national identity and geographical imageries, thus leading to the militarization of Russian Syria policy during Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term.