Indian Naval Despatch, Vol. 4 No. 3 (Winter 2023). “Leveraging Kautilya’s Arthasastra for Constructing Outer Space Rajamandala” by Capt Ritesh Suri.

“Since men live upon the land and not upon the sea, great issues between nations at war have always been decided—except in the rarest cases—either by what your army can do against your enemy's territory and national life or else by the fear of what the fleet makes it possible for your army to do.”

- Sir Julian Corbett

Although Corbett spoke about the sea, his assertion also concisely encapsulates the role of outer space in human affairs. In his informative essay, Captain Ritesh Suri seeks to develop an ‘Outer Space Rajamandala’ based on Kautilya’s territorial Rajamandala (the circle of kings) theory. Leaning on the fundamental ideas governing interstate relations, within the confines of Corbett’s assertion, this commentary attempts to analyse the validity of a separate outer space rajamandala. Concurrently, the urgent need to review the relevance of Kautilya’s Rajamandala construct will also be highlighted.

The prevalent and anticipated orientations on land primarily determine the orientation of inter-state relations in space as well. Therefore, the latter cannot be meaningfully different from the former. Given the technological constraints of operations in space programmes, a degree of cooperation in outer space, even among competing nations, has been seen over the years. But land-based interests do in fact directly govern this cooperation. For instance, a study report to NASA on US-Russia cooperation in the human space flight initiative points out that one of the goals of such cooperation was to encourage Russian compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and other non-proliferation regimes, which are inherently land-centric concerns.1 In 2022, the head of Roscosmos threatened that Moscow would quit the International Space Station (ISS) partnership in response to US sanctions, amidst the Russia-Ukraine war.2 Conversely, Moscow’s cooperation with America is, inter alia, to secure access to advanced technologies and the associated economic benefits. Furthermore, the cooperative arrangement is used as strategic leverage by both parties. Thus, while there can be variations in the degree of conflict and cooperation between land and outer space, the definitive moorings are still on land.

As a reverse argument of the above, it must also be appreciated that all objectives pursued in outer space have meaning only when they can influence the outcomes on land. The assertion of Everett Dolman, quoted by Captain Suri at the very beginning of his essay, brings out the underlying purpose of human endeavour in outer space—to dominate the terra and, therefore, the destiny of humankind. In his article entitled ‘New Frontiers, Old Realities’, Dolman leans on the geopolitical ideas of Thucydides and Mackinder to argue his case for American interests in developing its space power over China. The singular purpose that he suggests is to preserve the existing international system on land before it is fundamentally challenged by China, a rising space power.3 Thus, the relevance of space has come into existence because the states can access it and employ it as a means for power maximisation on land. Therefore, if the purpose is yet on land, then a separate rajamandala construct wherein an adversary (Ari) on land (China) becomes a middle king (madhyama) needs deeper deliberation. It may be of better strategic logic if one were to look at space as yet another dimension of power and warfare within the land-based rajamandala construct. But how far is the Kautilyan Rajamandala relevant in contemporary geopolitics?

It is contended that the relevance of the Kautilyan construct is quite limited. One of the reasons for this contention is that the idea is situated in a historical context when territorial conquests were politically, socially, and culturally accepted. In Figure 1 of the essay, it is clearly shown that the designations of enemy, ally, rear enemy, rear ally, and middle king are dependent on the direction of conquest and the contiguity of inter-state borders.4 However, since the Second World War, territorial expansion by a war of conquest is far less prevalent than earlier.5 And where territorial expansions have occurred, most have been war-averse instead of war- prone.6 Therefore, the Kautilyan mandala theory finds difficulty in expression in the absence of wars of conquest. Furthermore, while the author provides a caveat that the relationships among the actors of the mandala are dynamic, it can be inferred that the dynamism stems purely from the direction of territorial conquest and the resultant change in land borders. In the absence of such conquests, the idea will become static and, thus, lose validity for the prevalent international system.

Relationships purely based on territorial borders or physical boundaries weaken the utility of the Rajamandala further. Such an arrangement had a larger meaning when territory was the only source of wealth, which Kautilya brings out clearly in Book 15. Consider, for instance, the idea of a natural enemy. Kautilya says that “one with immediately proximate territory is the natural enemy.”7 The reason for such a preposition is that every king will naturally seek to expand his territory, and therefore the immediate neighbour will always be the object of conquest. However, in current global politics, inter-state animosity stems not only from contiguous territorial borders. It is an outcome of an admixture of political ideologies or identities, privileged access to niche technologies, and the securitisation of economics. Given the prevailing interconnected nature of the world, no one can be clearly labelled as an enemy to be destroyed in the Kautilyan sense. For that matter, it is equally difficult to locate a true ally as well. In his book ‘The India Way,’ Mr. Jaishankar suggests, “This is a time to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play.” This statement amply highlights the complex conundrum of contemporary inter-state relations.

Consequently, the endeavour to overlay the Rajamandala has perhaps biased the author to see China as a ‘middle king’ rather than as adversary, a move away from the current political reality. The author himself has acknowledged that China views India from a competitive perspective and has endorsed the observation of Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari that “China poses the biggest security threat to India in achieving its strategic goals.”8 Combining these observations with the reality of contested borders, China qualifies to be a strong adversary who is fit to be harassed and weakened, as Kautilya suggests.9 However, it meets the criteria of a middle king as given by Kautilya: “One with territory immediately proximate to those of the adversary (Pakistan) and the conqueror (India), capable of helping them when they are united or disunited and of suppressing them when they are disunited.” Thus, the point of departure from Kautilya’s Rajamandala is amply evident. Therefore, the author’s portrayal of China as a middle king in outer space Rajamandala is open to serious debate. Although the author has made the observation that there is a high probability of China becoming an adversary, the question of interest is whether it is just a probability or if it is already an enemy in the given circumstances.

On the contrary, the author’s ideas on policy options, based on Kautilya’s six measures of foreign policy and their derivatives for outer space, are appropriate even without the application of the Rajamandala construct. This observation further suggests that while Rajamandala may have been outdated, Arthasastra still continues to offer valuable guidelines for statecraft.

However, the discussion has shown that Kautilya’s Rajamandala needs to be redefined into a multi-dimensional model, where there are several shades of friends and foes. The dimensions that are readily apparent are world opinion, political ideologies, economic relations, and technological leverages. There is a need for a more nuanced theoretical construct if one ever were to create an exclusive Rajamandala for outer space. But will the fundamental orientation of strategic realities in outer space be any different from that of land, as long as men live on land?

Endnotes

  1. “U.S. -Russian Cooperation in Human Space Flight: Assessing the Impacts,” Space Policy Institute and Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Washington DC, February 2001.

  2. Jeffrey Klugger, “U.S.-Russian Space Collaboration Endures,” Time, 07 October 2022, https://time.com/6220640/us-russian-space-station-collaboration/.

  3. Everett Carl Dolman, “New Frontiers, Old Realities,” Strategic Studies Quarterly Spring (2012): 78,81,93-94.

  4. Ritesh Suri, “Leveraging Kautilya’s Arthasastra for Constructing Outer Space Rajamandala,” Indian Naval Despatch 4, no. 3 (April 2024): 107.

  5. Nils Petter Gleditsch et al., “The Decline of War,” International Studies Review 15, no. 3 (2013): 400.

  6. Dan Altman, “The Evolution of Territorial Conquest After 1945 and the Limits of the Territorial Integrity Norm,” International Organization 74, no. 3 (2020): 491–92.

  7. RP Kangle, trans., The Kautilya Arthasastra - Part 2, 1st ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1988), 318.

  8. Suri, “Constructing Outer Space Rajamandala,” 112.

  9. Kangle, The Kautilya Arthasastra - Part 2, 318.