ABSTRACT
The chapter undertakes the first step of the research process by examining Kautilya’s Arthashastra from a theoretical viewpoint. It extrapolates answers to three inter-related questions about the role of war, nature of adversary, and utility of the use of force, which together form the “central paradigm” – the first part of Johnston’s conception of strategic culture. The deduced paradigm views war as an inevitable phenomenon in an anarchic (matsya-nyaya) external environment, where relations with the adversary may tend towards zero-sum, and force is to be used as the last resort. The second part of the chapter engages with the second component of Johnston’s definition – “grand strategic preference ranking.” It conclusively suggests that there exists a preference for accommodationist strategies, followed by defensive and offensive. Predilection for accommodation is not solely due to the relative capacity to act coercively. Material capability, while important in the calculations of comprehensive national power, is not the singular determining factor in the choice of grand strategy. The central heuristics and the complementary ranked preferences extrapolated from the text are shown to be congruent, an important prerequisite of Johnston’s model.
