Strategic (Security) Studies

David Mutimer

Within the discipline of political science, the study of security was, until the 1990s, dominated by strategic studies. The end of the Cold War dealt a significant blow to the legitimacy of strategic studies as the centerpiece of the study of security, resulting in the transformation of the field into what we now know as security studies. This entry traces the history of that transformation, beginning with the evolution of strategic studies, its challengers, and the emergence of security studies as the new moniker for the field. It begins with the so-called golden age of strategic studies, in which the central concepts of Cold War security and defense were elaborated, and in particular, intellectual work was performed to integrate nuclear weapons into the discussion on national defense. It then considers the other two periods of Cold War strategic studies: the first characterized by the operationalization of arms control in the ...

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