Strategic culture and the hierarchy of security threats in Slovak security strategies (1996–2021)

Abstract This article analyses the evolution of Slovakia’s strategic culture by systematically examining its key national security strategies adopted between 1996 and 2021. While Slovak security policy has frequently been analysed from geopolitical or institutional perspectives, less attention has been devoted to how security threats are prioritised within the strategies themselves. To address this gap, the study employs a mixed-method approach combining qualitative interpretation with quantitative keyword-frequency analysis. Two indicators are used: emphasis value (formal prioritisation) and keyword frequency (discursive salience). Their combination produces an emphasis ranking visualised through quadrant-based mapping of threat prioritisation. The analysis demonstrates that Slovak strategic culture consistently prioritises societal and political sources of insecurity over conventional military threats, revealing a distinctive hierarchy of threat perception within Slovak strategic discourse.