| Summary/Abstract |
As Colin Gray’s colleagues and friends well know, he invested considerable intellectual energy into championing the concept of strategic culture. His affinity for it traces to his 1981 article in International Security which described “national style” as derivative of strategic culture.1 However, his interest in it waned after the first decade of the twenty-first century. In fact, Colin’s 2006 SAIC paper, Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture, may well be the culminating point of his thought on the topic.2 It is a curious paper, in any case. It claims strategic culture is “vitally important” and admits to “no persuasive arguments to the contrary;” nonetheless, its core is a discussion of eleven of the concept’s “perils and pitfalls” which together amount to just such an argument.3 Colin could, of course, work both sides of an argument better than almost anyone. Indeed, he could promote dialectically opposing points of view simultaneously and artfully.
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