Abstract

Images of the policy motivations and power capabilities of actors targeted by the initiator state that prevail politically in the latter determine the latter’s strategic policy direction. These images may tend in pathological directions that include oversimplification of the domestic political factors driving the target polities’ foreign policy. Nation state polities such as the US and Russia are relatively more prone to perceive challenges from target state and non-state actors. They are more prone to adopt policy decisions as if perceiving their targets in accordance with regular image patterns tending towards oversimplification, i.e. stereotypes. These image stereotypes can be categorized and the strategic policy tends that would associate with them can be inferred. The national security infrastructure founded and developed during the Cold War has institutionalized established interests that promote stabilization as a strategy. This stabilization strategy is embodied in the international legal principle, uti possidetis juris, i.e. the right of self-determination applies only to communities defined by existing provincial or republic territorial boundaries. This strategy serves those powerful interests vested at the pinnacle of the regional international political status quo.