CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Mullin, Conor |
|---|---|
| Title | Breaking the Taboo of the Iron Cross: German Strategic Culture and the War in Ukraine |
| Summary | This thesis examines the impact of the War in Ukraine in 2022 on Germany’s strategic culture. I argue that this event has generated a strategic shock with the potential to trigger a total shift in Germany’s deep-rooted strategic culture, utilizing first and third generation definitions of the concept, and applying theories of strategic shock to it which demonstrate how this phenomenon has potential to break strategic cultures at rates much faster than assumed in the initial scholarly work on the subject. This research looks at the era from the Kosovo War up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in order to get a full picture of the endurance of German strategic culture, the allowance of aberrations in strategic culture, and to show how the current situation demonstrates enough of a difference from these previous scenarios and constitutes a deep enough strategic shock to change the nation’s strategic culture. I determine that given the international interventions and non-interventions of the past twenty-three years, Germany is shown to have behaved almost exclusively within the parameters of its strategic culture, and only with the outbreak of war in Ukraine has it found a catalyst to change it. Ultimately, I build a case that strategic culture can change at a much faster pace when presented with the right set of strategic shock circumstances. |
| Supervisor | Roe, Paul |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/mullin_conor.pdf |
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