The Impact of Cultural Factors on Geopolitical Codes in Ukraine

Strategic culture is the consequence of historical experiences. Since these experiences are different in each country, therefore different states have different strategic cultures. The other fact is that there is a deep relationship among strategic culture, strategic behavior and geopolitical codes. Ukraine also has its certain strategic culture against its historical experiences, political strategy and geography. In order to explain and understand strategic decisions and geopolitical codes in Ukraine, adequate attention should be paid to structural circumstances and causes of international politics, as well as rules, intentions and goals and their background. The main question of the present article is about the impact of strategic culture on geopolitical codes of Ukraine’s foreign policy? Ukraine’s strategic culture includes vulnerable social structure, ethnic – linguistic gap, as well as geopolitical and geostrategic features such as Atlanticism accompanied by an attempt to get free from Russian dominance, being the subject of rivalry between Russia and European Union, geo-economic dependence. These features have a deep impact on Ukraine’s strategic decision making and behavioral model in foreign policy arena and international environment, preventing the provision of geopolitical codes that lead to its foreign policy interests. Bearing in mind that strategic culture paves the ground for understanding geopolitical codes for each actor, the necessity of understanding Ukraine’s strategic culture, also becomes understandable.
The authors use analytical – explanatory method to find the answer for the literature’s question