ABSTRACT
The quest of international relations scholarship has been to understand why states behave the way they do in the international system. Historically, cultural arguments have had deep, though not always measurable, effects on strategic behaviour. Kautilya's Arthashastra reveals that the complex, yet logically coherent, procedure of arriving at grand strategic preferences incorporates classic “structural-realist” ideas. It subsumes material capabilities, the balance of power, and relative power equations. Kautilya's Arthashastra represents the “cross-fertilization” of realist and culturalist arguments. It exemplifies the possibility of strategic culture having realist foundations, or put differently, a realist perspective rooted in cultural moorings. Kautilyan grand strategy is a unique representation of a “dialectical engagement” between rationality and normativity at all levels – ends, ways, and means. The political end-goal of “yogakshema” achieves the inherently interdependent twin goals of security and prosperity.
