[Emerging  Powers  in  the  Aerospace  Age]  [Aerospace  Capability  in  National  Power]  

[Dr  M  Matheswaran  PhD    -­‐  Air  Marshal  (retd),  Indian  Air  Force]  

ABSTRACT  

[Scholars like Alvin Toffler have indicated that the world is in a transition from the industrial age to knowledge age. How does this impact on the Great power system? That great powers posses lead in military, economic, and technological capabilities is well known. The concept of knowledge age does not really give a clear picture of the impact of the transition. This would be best understood as to how this transition impacts on national power of nations. Primarily the technological transition can be seen as Aerospace power, and hence, the 21st century is seen as aerospace age. This emanates from a fusion of four core sectors of technology - aviation, space, communication, and computers. This combination will drive not only military power, but also the whole gamut of IT and knowledge industries, and through it the economies of the world. Quite obviously, great powers of 21st century will have to be leading aerospace powers. In this context, we can assess emerging powers like China and India from the perspective of their aerospace capabilities and thus, their ability to challenge technological superiority of the existing great powers. Can aerospace capability become a measure of the gap between the great powers and the emerging powers?]        Paper to be presented at ISA-FLCSO Conference, Buenos Aires, 25 July 2014. (Not to be cited without permission)

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EMERGING POWERS IN THE AEROSPACE AGE Dr M Matheswaran PhD Air Marshal (retd), IAF

Introduction

The modern international system owes its nature and origin to the Treaty of Westphalia. The Treaty of Westphalia, the 1648 settlement of the Thirty Years war, is now 366 years old and it initiated the modern international system of sovereign states. The world system of modern nation-states, primarily Euro-centric in the 17-18th centuries, gradually grew to encompass the entire world by the middle of the twentieth century. This world system is characterised by two fundamental characteristics: anarchy and competition. Anarchy relates to independence, accepting no superior to state authority while competition grew out of economics – the need to create wealth. It led to the evolution of the concepts sovereignty, state, nationalism, and the nation-state. As processes of self-determination took root, it led to a proliferation of states. But as the nation-state system evolved in Europe, the rest of the world, other than the Americas, were colonised by imperial powers. At the end of the Second World War, the international system was strengthened with multilateral organisations. Decolonisation led to the creation of many states. As the world split into two major ideological camps a bipolar stability prevailed for the next 44 years. The world, however, was controlled by the victorious powers that controlled the international system through the control of organisations such as the UN Security Council, World Bank, IMF etc. Asian economies evolved and crossed a critical mass in terms of wealth generation, their development process was accelerated as world was freed from the ideological trap and the primacy of economics in the globalisation process took over. As economic interdependence continues increase the globalisation process, its impact on the international system continues to be a major subject of debate. When we analyse the fact of the emergence of new powers their impact on the international system has to be examined in great detail. As globalisation became the flavour of discussions in the last decade of the 20th century, it was usual for many scholars to subscribe to the theory that the nation-state and hence, sovereignty, will transform into more compromised and diluted concepts in the 21st century. The corollary was that global interdependence would end the relevance of ‘power politics’. Into the second decade of the 21st century, the visible rise of China and India as large economies, their competing industrialisation and technological development, their strong nationalistic sentiments, and China’s increasing display of power, have put paid to further debate on the issues of sovereignty, nation-state, and power politics. This paper establishes the premise that the 21st century is the century of aerospace power, and Great Powers will have to be aerospace powers. Consequently, national power, as a measure of the power of nations must take into account their aerospace capabilities when considering emerging powers and great powers.

Sovereignty, Nation-State, and Power Politics in the 21st century Fundamentally constitutions of international society are nothing but the means that define or provide legitimacy to authority. The crux of this authority is sovereignty, and it can be seen to exist with three faces. The first relates to legitimate polity or sovereign authority. Since Westphalia in the West, later throughout the globe, international constitutions have defined the legitimate polities mainly as states, possessing the quality of sovereignty. Sovereign authority is supreme authority. The notion of

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territoriality is central to the concept of sovereign authority. Sovereign authority relates to both external and internal sovereignty. Sovereignty is also absolute and it is this that renders international relations anarchical. The second face of authority relates to the rules of membership of the international system; that is rules that determine who is a legitimate polity. The third face of sovereign authority determines the fundamental powers of states. Sovereignty, therefore, becomes the most important element in the international system and this is well described by James: “Sovereignty is the ground rule of inter-state relations in that it identifies the territorial entities that are eligible to participate in the game”.1 Wallerstein explains the notion of sovereignty more emphatically: “Sovereignty is never a matter for a single state, it is an inter-state arrangement because sovereignty can only exist for ‘states who reciprocally recognise each other’s legitimate existence within the framework and norms of the inter-state system.”2 An obvious outcome of the understanding of sovereign authority was a continual increase in the number of states. The resultant characteristic of this modern nation-state system was its inherent quality of competitiveness, militarily and economically. This competition became fierce as Europe, the originator of the nation-state system, began the transformation from being primarily an agricultural economy to manufacturing production economy. As the growth tended towards a capitalist world economy, a struggle for supremacy in terms of power became the order of the day3. Power was necessary to acquire wealth, power was necessary to protect wealth, wealth was necessary to create power and thus an interplay of power politics and economics has characterised the international system. Globalisation does not change or dilute this fundamental basis. Thus as Machiavelli observes – “modern states are based on power. States aspire to increase their power politically and economically”. The objective of increasing power is twofold: one, to safeguard its sovereignty; and two, to improve its standing in international hierarchy. In practical terms it is not as simplistic. It becomes complex due to a variety of factors such as economic growth due to trade and production, increase in material power leading to greater requirement of security, and a constant race for dominance of markets. While on the face of it the struggle for power may appear essentially as a political conflict, in actuality the underlying cause of these struggles is rooted in a complex web of economic, technological, and military competition. The essence of power politics can only be understood when all these dimensions are analysed. The relevance of economic competition as the basis of power politics in modern times comes out clearly in Wallerstein’s world-economy model.4 Analysis of this model brings out two salient aspects:

• The world-economy consists of a single world market, largely capitalist. The European states changed to the free-market system in which economic competition by way of production and trade is promoted. Competition is possible only when the entire region/continent/world functions in the same economic model. This was achieved in Europe after 1450 AD as all the states embraced the free-market economic system, particularly after Adam Smith’s postulation of ‘laissez faire’ in 1776 AD. As the European powers went about colonising rest of the world, they imposed their economic system on these lands as well. In turn, as the

1 A. James, ‘Sovereignty: ground rule or gibberish?’ Review of International Studies 10: 1-18, p. 2. 2 I. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 175. 3 I. Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, (New York: Academic Press, 1974), p.124. 4 Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems approach or world-economy model is, probably, the most comprehensive analysis that combines history, economic analysis, and social theories in studying the nature of modern international system of states. See I. Wallerstein, The Capitalist World-Economy, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), and The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy 1600-1750, (New York: Academic Press, 1980). See also ‘The future of the world-economy’ in T. K. Hopkins and I. Wallerstein (eds.), Processes of the World-System, (Beverley Hills: Sage, 1980) and I. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

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European world economy expanded it eliminated all mini systems and world empires to become truly global by about 1900 AD.5

• The international system of many nation-states is a necessary element of the world-economy as each state pursues actions in its own interests.

The model brings out the nature of international competition where single states are able to distort the market in the interests of their national capitalist group within their own boundaries and powerful states can distort the market well beyond their boundaries for a short time. This is the very essence of international politics. The concrete result of this process is a “competitive system, which is characterised by power politics, geopolitics, and balance of power situations.”6

Wallerstein’s model establishes the fact that economic, technological, and military factors are responsible in the build up of national power of a state, and this plays a crucial role in determining the structure of the international system.

The Russian economist, Kondratieff, analysed world economic growth patterns, and identified that the world economy developed in a cyclical manner, generally in 50-year cycles. When we combine Wallerstein’s model and Kondratieff cycles, we can establish the fact that world-economic growth is linked to the emergence of ‘critical technologies’ in each period. There have been four cycles in the modern period, since 1780. Every cycle tends to be associated with significant technological changes, around which other innovations – in production, distribution, and organisation – cluster and ultimately spread throughout the economy. The current fifth cycle is driven by aerospace and information technologies. Most importantly, analysis shows that the nation that develops and controls ‘critical technologies’ dominates the cycle.7

Wallerstein relates this pattern of cyclical evolution to the inherent competitiveness in the international system. Prior to 1780, leading back to 1450 when world-economy was said to have begun, these cycles are identified in longer and shorter waves known as “logistic waves”. Study of the world-economy model also shows the route to hegemony through build up of economic dominance, which can be seen, in the essentially three-tier model of the world economy. The first, and the dominant, tier is the ‘core’ that is made up of states that possess large capital, and dominate and control production processes and leading edge technologies. The second tier is the periphery that is made up of weaker states that have low technology and are dependent on the core.8 The third is the semi-periphery that consist of states neither core nor periphery, essentially revisionist, but combines particular mixture of both processes. The semi-periphery is the dynamic category within the world economy. The crux of the three-tier model is national power; how nations develop and pursue competitive strategies to build effective national power and move into the core. At the same time, a detailed analysis will reveal the fact that the dominant “core”

5 Taylor observes: “the expanding world-economy has incorporated mini-systems and world-empires whose populations became part of this new system. All peoples of the continents beyond Europe have experienced this transformation over the last 500 years.” Peter J. Taylor, Political Geography, p. 8. 6 Taylor, ibid., p. 10. 7 Scholars like Alvin Toffler, Freeman etc have said the world is witnessing an unprecedented technological revolution. Some researchers have identified four generic technologies as being at the heart of this revolution: biotechnology, materials technology, energy technology, and aerospace and information technology. Thomas Clarke & Stewart Clegg, Changing Paradigms: The Transformation of Management Knowledge for the 21st Century, (London: Harper Collins Business, 2000), pp. 150-155. 8 India’s position in the 19th century as a British colony shows how it was marginalised into the periphery. At the beginning of the modern age, in the 16th to 18th century, India accounted for nearly 25% of the world’s manufacturing output. By the 19th century the British had incorporated India into the world-economy model as a resource base for raw materials and a market for finished goods. As a result India missed out the entire Industrial Revolution, and its share in the manufacturing output of the world was down to 0.2% at the beginning of the 20th century. For example, by the late 19th century India was organised to produce cotton for Lancashire. In essence India’s role was to provide raw material for British textile industries, and thus was imposed a peripheral process of exploitation.

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powers, which are status-quo powers, focus their attempts to ensure that their technological lead is maintained or enhanced, thus preventing new powers joining their ranks. Using Wallerstein’s three-tier world-economy model and Kondratieff’s long cycles of economic growth, a chronological matrix of last 500 years can be made that shows the crux of power politics involving economic, political and military competition. The matrix is made more relevant by including the technological dimension. The table below indicates the pattern of power struggle and the importance of having control over core technologies, economic processes and military power. Each cycle shows a growth phase (A) and a stagnation phase (B).

Table 1: Space-Time-Information Matrix of Power Politics

Cycles Core Semi-Periphery Periphery Logistic Curve

A 1450-1600 1600-1780/90

B

Initial geographical expansion based on Iberia but economic advances based on NW Europe. Consolidation of NW Europe’s dominance, first Dutch and then French-English rivalry.

Relative decline of cities of central and Mediterranean Europe. Declining areas now include Iberia and joined by rising groups in Sweden, Prussia and Northeast USA.

Iberian empires in ‘New World’. Second ‘feudalism in Eastern Europe. Retrenchment in Latin America and East Europe. Rise of Caribbean sugar. French defeat in India and Canada.

Kondratieff Wave-I

A 1780/90-1810/17 1810/17-B 1844/51

Industrial revolution in Britain, ‘National’ revolution in France. Defeat of France. Consolidation of British economic leadership.

Relative decline of the whole of semi-periphery. Establishment of USA Beginning of selective rise in North America and central Europe.

Decolonisation and expansion. Formal control in India but informal controls in Latin America. Expansion of British influence in Latin America. Initial opening up of East Asia.

Kondratieff Wave-II

A 1844-1875 B 1875-1896

Britain as the ‘Workshop of the World’ in an era of free trade. British dominance-economic and military. Decline of Britain relative to USA and Germany. Emergence of socialism.

Reorganisation of Semi-periphery: Civil war in USA, unification of Germany and Italy, Entry of Russia. Decline of Russia and Mediterranean Europe.

The classic era of ‘informal imperialism with growth of Latin America. Expansion-scramble for Africa. The classical age of imperialism.

Kondratieff Wave-III

A 1890-1920

B 1920-1945

Consolidation of German and USA economic leadership. Arms race. Defeat of Germany. British empire saved. USA economic leadership confirmed.

Entry of Japan and Dominion states. Communism in Russia. Establishment of USSR. Entry of Argentina

Consolidation of colonialism. Growth in trade. Neglect of Periphery. Beginning of Peripheral revolt.

Kondratieff Economic and military Rise of Eastern Europe and Communism in China. End

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Wave-IV A

1945-1967

B 1967-1989

dominance of USA. New era of free trade. Shift of USSR to core state. Struggle of capitalism Vs communism. Decline of USA relative to Europe and Japan. Nuclear Arms race.

‘Cold War’, Entry of OPEC. Entry of ‘little Japan’ in East Asia and regional powers-China, Brazil, Mexico, India. Rise of debts to core.

of colonialism. Rise of neo-colonialism Severe economic crisis and conflict. Expansion of Poverty.

Kondratieff Wave-V

A 1989-2039?

End of ‘cold war’ and communism. Demise of USSR. Dominance of USA economically, militarily and technologically. Aerospace and Information revolution. Globalisation.

Spread of free market economy. Economic and military growth of China, India and East Asian countries. Consolidation of EU. Decline of Russia. Relative decline of Britain, France, Japan. Growth of Germany.

Globalisation affects peripheral states. Rise of economic clashes. Poverty in Africa.

B

2039-2089?

USA’s economic, technological and military leads reduced. Rise of EU, Russia, China, India and

Japan (possibly a federation of Japan, Korea and some

ASEAN countries.

Decline of West European states as independent

powers. Decline/dissolution of NATO and G – 7

hegemony.

Strong impact of major powers on regions. USA on American continents, EU

on Europe, China on Asia, Russia on CIS and Central Asia, Japan on east Asia

and ASEAN, India on Asia and Indian Ocean. West

Asia, Gulf and Africa likely to be areas of intense

competition amongst major powers.

Adapted from: Peter J. Taylor, Political Geography, (1989), pp. 20-21.

In a realistic analysis it can be said that the success of a state’s effort in power politics depends on

it winning the economic and technological competitions. It involves activities of a state that aims at maximising its economic surpluses in two related ways. The first, and most relevant to modern times, is the expropriation via the market. The second and the traditional expropriation method of world empires, not entirely eliminated, is the use of political and military power to obtain surplus. Chase-Dunn calls both methods two sides of the overall politico-economic logic: “the interdependence of political military power and competitive advantage in production in the capitalist world-economy reveals that the logic of the accumulation process includes the logic of state building and geopolitics”.9 The West has achieved considerable supremacy in economic, political and military power over rest of the world by the middle of the 20th century. Increasingly the West and the G – 7 have tended to use coercive strategies, using economic and military power, to retain this dominance.

9 C. K. Chase-Dunn, ‘Socialist states in the capitalist world-economy’ in C. K. Chase-Dunn (ed.), Socialist States in the World System, (Beverley Hills: Sage, 1982), p. 25.

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The Struggle for Power as the Essential Nature of International Relations

The struggle for power amongst nations is the hard reality of international relations. Competition and conflict are inherent and inevitable characteristics of human nature. Study of history, particularly modern history of nation-states, establishes the fact that the relations among nation-states are inherently competitive. Nation-states compete most intensely in the realm of military security, but compete in other realms as well, in particular in economic relations. Competition is a consequence of anarchy, which force states ultimately to rely on themselves to ensure their survival and autonomy. In such an environment, states approach co-operation with a concern for its impact on relative power positions. International politics are, then, in one sense always power politics. Political power in the international sphere can be said to consist of three categories: (a) military power, (b) economic power, and (c) power over opinion or political power, which is essential.10 The three are interdependent; and it is difficult in practice to imagine a country for any length of time possessing one kind of power in isolation from others. Essentially power is an indivisible whole, and military power is the foremost instrument that nation-states have for the exercise of power. Increasingly ‘threat’ or ‘coercion’ may replace war, and modern aerospace power is capable of ensuring it. The Cold War showed one intense form of ideology-based power politics. While the Cold War was orchestrated by the two super powers, the slow rise of China and India brought in the dissenting voices. Since they lacked economic and technological strengths, their attempts to influence the course of events were hardly effective.

Geopolitical Cycles and World Hegemony Fundamentally, economic and technological strengths underpin the establishment of hegemony by a major power or a group of powers. The challenge to this hegemonic domination comes from emerging powers only when they begin to achieve a critical mass in their economic and technological strengths. China, India, and Brazil have begun to display this critical mass at the turn of this century. India’s declaration as a nuclear weapon state conforms to this pattern. History demonstrates this pattern clearly wherein world hegemony was achieved, in different cycles, by major powers due to geopolitical dominance. Most scholars have viewed the rise and decline of major powers through the framework of cyclic models of change. In 1988 Goldstein described more than a dozen such changes.11 Modelski’s analysis is more relevant where his model identifies five cycles and four world leaders. Both these analyses prove the fact that states always endeavour to increase their power and status. Geopolitics highlights the competitive nature of the international system for a variety of reasons: International politics, economics, commerce, social politics, resources and military dominance. Modelski’s model of long cycles of global politics gives a logical method of identifying the dominant power at any period. Modelski’s global system begins about 1500 AD and then proceeds to develop in a cyclic manner.12 The study establishes each cycle of around hundred years in length, and the world is now experiencing fifth such cycle. Each cycle is associated with a world power that dominated the global political system. In Modelski’s analysis four such world powers have existed, viz., Portugal, Netherlands, Britain and the USA. These have dominated their centuries; Portugal the sixteenth, Netherlands the seventeenth, Britain the eighteenth and nineteenth, and the USA in the twentieth. The most important observation in Modelski’s analysis is that a state becomes a hegemon or world power when it becomes or dominates the centre of the global system. This global system, though resting on primarily economic factors, is interlinked to technological and military factors. For example Portugal, by

10 Ibid., p. 108. 11 J. S. Goldstein, ‘Introduction: Bringing History Back In’ in W. L. Goldfrank (ed.), The World System of Capitalism: Past and Present, (Beverley Hills: Sage, 1988). 12 G. Modelski, Long Cycles of World Politics, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1987). Modelski’s model is concerned with the global political system while Wallerstein’s world economy framework is, in reality, more Euro-centric.

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taking over the trading network in the Indian Ocean in the 15th and 16th centuries, became the centre of a global system and, hence, a world power. Since the end of the Second World War, and more so after the Cold war, the USA has become the centre of the global system militarily, economically, technologically and politically.

Table: 2: Modelski’s Long Cycles of Global Politics

Cycles World Power

World Wars Legitimising Treaties

Key Institutions Landmarks of Decline

I Portugal Italian Wars (1494-1517)

Treaty of Tordesillas

Global Network of bases

Spanish annexation (1580)

II Netherlands Spanish Wars (1579-1609)

Twelve Year truce with Spain(1609)

‘Mare Librium’ The English Revolution

III Britain French Wars (1688-1713)

Treaty of Utrecht(1713)

Command of the Sea

Independence of USA

IV Britain French Wars (1792-1815)

Paris and Vienna (1814,1815)

Free Trade Imperialism

V USA German Wars (1914-1945)

Versailles and Potsdam (1919, 1945)

UN Vietnam War

VI USA

Cold War (1952-1990)

End of cold war and Communism, fall of USSR

UN, Globalisation, Technological supremacy

Proliferation of technology and Nuclear weapons

VII USA Strategy of orchestrating coalitions, manipulation of the UN and coercive strategies over rest of the world to establish unipolar dominance

Expansion of NATO, Coalition strategies, Manipulation of UN bodies.

Western Democracy, free market, WTO, MTCR, IAEA, NPT, and CTBT.

Clash of civilisation, terrorism, Fundamentalism, Racism, Trade protectionism, Isolation, rise of multi – polarity.

Source: Modified from Taylor, Political Geography, P. 60.

Modelski says that states are driven by what is called “the urge to make global order”. This is, in short, the ambition to dominate local, regional, and global orders successively. Once the possibilities of a global order became known, states demonstrate an innate will for power that becomes expressed as an urge to shape world order. This is evident in the manner in which China, in particular, and India have evolved in the last two decades. China has evolved to become the world’s manufacturing giant, while

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India has evolved to dominate the Information Technology enabled services industry. Modelski’s long cycle model indicates that each major power plays the power game to establish its hegemony. Hegemonies encompass dominance in economic, political, military and ideological spheres of activity. From an economy dominated analysis we find states use trade and control of commerce markets to build their national power and achieve hegemony. In short, effective hegemonies are based upon the development of economic supremacy. But modern history shows economic supremacy can be achieved and sustained only by technological progress and technological supremacy. Modelski’s and Wallerstein’s research analysis establishes the fundamental nature of competitiveness and desire for hegemony or world dominance amongst the major powers. This struggle for power fructifies only when a state recognizes and exploits the necessary political change or technological opportunity to create world system and world dominance in its favour. Practically a nation-state’s hegemony is built up in three stages. Initially, the state gains primacy in technology and production efficiency over its rivals. This enables its merchants to develop a commercial supremacy, which finally leads to financial dominance. Financial dominance enables the state to achieve military dominance. When economic, technological, and military activities of one state are more efficient than all rivals, that state’s national power is comprehensively stronger than others’ are, and its hegemony occurs. Only those rivals, who emulate the hegemonic state’s lead in economic, technological, and military activities to enhance their national power, can challenge this dominance. An analysis of the hegemonic dominance achieved by Britain and later, America, highlights the importance of comprehensive development of economic, technological and military instruments of national power.

Table 3: A Dynamic Model of Hegemony and Rivalry

Kondratieff Cycle

Great Britain USA

A-1 Ascending Hegemony

1790/8 Rivalry with France (Napoleonic Wars). Productive efficiency, Industrial Revolution

1890/6 Rivalry with Germany, Productive efficiency, Mass Production techniques.

B-1 Hegemonic

Victory

1815/25 Commercial Victory in Latin America, and control of India, Workshop of the World.

1913/20 Commercial victory in the collapse of British free trade system and decisive military defeat of Germany.

A-2 Hegemonic

Maturity

1844/51 Era of free trade. London becomes financial centre of the World economy.

1940/45 Liberal economic system of Bretton Woods based upon the dollar. New York becomes new financial centre of the World

B-2 Declining Hegemony

1870/75 Classical age of Imperialism as European powers and USA rival Britain. New industrial revolution emerging outside Britain

1967/73 Reversal to protectionist practices to counteract Japan and European rivals.

Source: Wallerstein and his Research Working Group, 1979 from Sudeepta Adhikari, Political Geography (1999), P.50. An analysis of the hegemonic patterns of Britain and America reveals the fact that ‘technological competence and supremacy’ forms the foundation upon which a state’s power is gradually built. This is shown above in Table 2.3. The first pair covering the nineteenth century corresponds to the rise and fall of British hegemony and the second pair describes a similar sequence of events for USA in the twentieth

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century. In the first growth phase of ‘ascending hegemony’, A-1, we find ‘geopolitical rivalry’ as core states compete for succession to leadership. This stage is characterised by new technological advances concentrated in one country so that increased productive efficiency gives this stage a long-term advantage in developing military, economic, and technological power. In the next stage, B-1, which is the stage of hegemonic victory, overall decline of the world economy leaves fewer opportunities for expansion but the ascending power now derives commercial supremacy and is able to protect its interests relative to its rivals. By the next stage, A-2, which is the stage of hegemonic maturity, the financial centre of the world economy has moved to the hegemonic state, which is now supreme in production, commerce, and finance. Here the hegemonic power establishes supremacy in military, economic and technological fields. This supremacy in power allows the state to ‘open up’ the world economy to its advantage. Although this is the period of free trade, undoubtedly the economic advantage accrues to the dominant power. Moreover its technological supremacy contributes greatly to its economic and military dominance. The last stage, B-2, is the stage of ‘declining hegemony’ as by this time the rivals close the gap in production efficiency and technological advantage. This period is one of acute competition as revisionist powers endeavour to neutralise and overtake the status quo powers. Combining and extrapolating Wallerstein and Modelski’s’ analyses, we find that we are now into an ascending phase of a new Kondratieff cycle. This cycle is again, as we can all see, being dominated by the USA due to various factors such as the end of the Cold War, demise of the USSR, emergence of a technological revolution, globalisation, and the evolving transformation in the nature of war. The above analysis strengthens an aspect of realistic theory that world affairs are invariably conditioned to meet hegemonic aspirations of the major power or group of powers. The analysis so far clearly establishes the fact that national power is the critical determinant of a state’s ability to function effectively in the international system. That this international system will continue to be anarchic in the 21st century is well established. Power politics, balance of power strategies, economic, military, and increasingly technological competitions will characterise the international order in the 21st century.

21st Century World Order The international order of the 21st century is considerably different from any system ever before in human civilisation. The world continues to hang to a world order established at the end of the Second World War. This order, established by the victorious powers of the Second World War, was Western oriented or essentially Eurocentric. At that time most of Asia and Africa were still colonies or were in the process of becoming free. For almost the entire Cold War period these nations were yet to be economically significant. Towards the end of the 20th century the situation has changed. East Asia has become economic powerhouses. Japan is already a major economic and technological power. China and India are growing at considerable rate, and are significant military powers. China is emerging as the next global power that can rival the USA in the not too distant future. Post Second World War order has established a significant axiom for Great Power status, which is the necessity of being a nuclear weapon state. However, economic power, technological prowess, and human resources are mandatory attributes of national power to evolve as a great Power. The world of 21st century is going to be dominated by powers that possess significant strengths in economic, scientific, technological, human capital, and military power. In short comprehensive national power in the 21st century will depend largely on the ability of nations, and great powers in particular, to harness the cutting edge of technology for social, economic, and military gains. The emerging powers with these strengths are China, India, Brazil, and to a lesser extent South Africa, Iran and Indonesia. Besides, the European Union and Japan are established technology and economic powerhouses. Russia, as an erstwhile super power, is attempting to regain its lost power. It has the technological wherewithal, but suffers from lack of economic and political clout in sufficient measure. Under these emerging conditions the prevalent US-Eurocentric international order will not be able to

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retain its dominance far into the 21st century. The short-lived uni-polar domination of the world by the USA has given way to a muddled multi-polarity that continues to be transitional.

National Power in the Aerospace Age National power is the product of economic, technological, scientific and military aspects of power. It is dynamic and is the best indicator of the changing nature of the international landscape. Economic and technological power provides the fuel for military power. Military power provides the security needed for economic and technological growth. Diplomacy, with effective military power backing it, ensures positive environment for economic and technological growth. Nations will have to continually recognise and improve those dynamic sectors that form critical element of national power so as to sustain and improve their security and standing in the international order.

National power thus, realistically described, is a mix of strategic, military, economic, technological and political strengths and weaknesses. It is determined in part by the military forces and the military establishment of a country but even more by the size and location of territory, the nature of frontiers, the population, the raw-material resources, the economic structure, the technological development, the financial strength, the ethnic mix, the social cohesiveness, the stability of political processes and decision-making, and, finally, the intangible quantity usually described as national spirit.13 A combined analysis of Wallerstein’s model and the Russian economist Kondratieff’s cyclical economy model establishes the fact that world-economic growth is linked to the emergence of ‘critical technologies’ in each period. Figure 1 shows a simplified picture of the four K-waves beginning in 1780 and the dominant technologies. Every cycle tends to be associated with significant technological changes. The current fifth cycle is driven by aerospace and information technologies. Most importantly, analysis shows that the nation that develops and controls ‘critical technologies’ dominates the cycle.

Figure 1: Dominant Technology Cycles

13 Ray S. Cline, World Power Assessment 1977: A Calculus of Strategic Drift, West View Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1977.

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Development of Aerospace Age

The ability of any nation to project effective power was largely dependent upon whether it was in the mainstream of the technological wave that influenced and transformed societies, nations and civilisations. As the Tofflers14 put it, mankind has witnessed two waves or revolutions so far: Agricultural and Industrial; and the third wave or revolution is under way. A significant fact of these revolutions is that each one is made up of many technological evolutions. The Tofflers have asserted that the new microelectronics, data processing, data storage, and communications technologies now visible everywhere constitute nothing less than a “third wave” in the evolution of civilisation. The first wave is related to the society dominated by agricultural technology; the second, driven essentially by the industrial revolution, was dominated by the culture of mass production and free market economy; while the third, which is underway, is knowledge driven and differs greatly from the previous waves. According to Czerwinski, a deeper analysis indicates that the waves or ages in human history are parallel and are composed of three levels that interact vertically through a “Principle-Metaphor-Tool” bridge.15 In this, technology and its application in all processes dominate the first level of any wave. The second level is interpretative as pre-modern, modern, and post-modern, and deals with aspects of culture, literature, arts and philosophy etc. The third and the deepest level of a wave is the foundational. Science, religion and superstition share this region, and paradigms originate at this level. Science comes to the forefront in later waves, and as a result the first wave becomes the ‘Age of faith,’ the second ‘Age of Reason’ and the third ‘Age of Knowledge or Intuition.’ The names of the three: agricultural, industrial and information stem from application of technology. Whether a nation’s culture, industry, economy and military are in the third wave or second wave, or whether it is stuck in a complex and conflictual situation of all three waves, becomes an important factor in the effectiveness of its national power. This fact should form a crucial element in any methodology evolved to assess the power of nations.

Table 4: Civilisational Waves

Waves, Revolutions and Ages Layer Waves

First Second Third Application Agricultural Industrial Information Interpretative Pre-modernism Modernism Post-modernism Foundational Faiths Reason Intuition

Source: Thomas J. Czerwinski, The Third Wave: What the Tofflers never told you, Internet, 2000

The current explosion of technology, when related to the “third wave”, can be seen to have originated essentially in the 1950s with the beginning of space exploration. The post-modern period, however, can be said to have begun in the last decade of the twentieth century when a critical level of maturity was attained in aviation, space, communication, and information technologies. The third wave is one dominated by knowledge-based technology. The roots of third wave technology can be traced to the 14 Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti War, See also Alvin Toffler’s Third wave and Future Shock. 15 Thomas J. Czerwinski, The Third Wave: What the Tofflers never told you, (National Defence University, Strategic Forum, Number 72, April 1996), Online, http://www.ndu.edu/inss/strforum/forum/2.html, Internet, 2000.

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above four technologies. Aviation technologies matured and attained a critical mass for faster growth by the end of II World War. This led to explorations in space, communications, computers and other allied technologies16. The specific needs of aviation and space sectors, small size (miniaturisation) and high performance (computation), led to rapid growth in the fields of computers and communications. Once critical thresholds, in terms of performance, miniaturisation and production, were achieved in all four sectors by the 1990s, we find that the integration and interaction of these technologies have fuelled an explosive growth in all segments, underwritten by the core factors of information and knowledge. All these four segments, when fused and correlated with national power, emerge as aerospace technologies and aerospace power. These become the character of the current environment and age, as they permeate activities and thought processes. Consequently, 21st century becomes an aerospace century. Aerospace technologies are, by virtue of their many dimensional impacts, beginning to have major impact upon national power. The technological explosion emanating from aerospace technology has branched off into many segments such as information technology, computers, aerospace applications, sensors, biotechnology etc. This makes it clear that the fundamental drivers of current technological revolutions are aerospace technologies. As the world evolves from an industrial era to information era, major powers will necessarily have to transform into knowledge societies. Thus, the struggle for power will be dominated by technology in all spheres: economic, military, and social. The dimension of technology in the composition of national power will assume critical proportions. For example, the economic sphere will be characterised by very stiff competition in eight technological domains: microelectronics, biotechnology, advanced materials, telecommunications, civil aviation, robotics, machine tools, and computer software. Recognising the importance of air and space power, the US Air Force and the Department of Defence began carrying out various studies to establish the right strategy that would ensure the USA would retain or improve its technological lead in these sectors over its likely peer competitors. Some of these studies, Air Force 2025 and World Vistas, have become accepted roadmaps for the government. Similarly, China made significant changes to its strategy in the late 1980s and early 1990s to focus on the development technological mastery in the aerospace domain. This has resulted in quantum jump in its investments in the Space and Aeronautical sectors. The improvements attained by India and Brazil is equally significant. In order to evaluate the impact of emerging powers on the global system, a methodology that measures national power, factoring aerospace capability would be in order. It could become a complex process but would be a significant factor in the analysis of the emerging powers. Traditional Measurement of National Power Measurement of national power has engaged the attention of national leaderships and many scholars since the last century. This was important as, in their opinion, relative strengths of nations indicated how secure a nation was against a rival or potential threat. Secondly, these measurements gave an indication of military strengths of nations and, as a result, the relative rankings of various powers. More importantly, a state needed to know the changes in power capability of various countries so that it takes appropriate steps to ensure that it retains its advantage or status quo position, or improve its strength and, consequently, its standing in the international order. It also indicates the core competencies that are necessary to make a state truly a great power. Almost all studies so far have treated the subject as one of studying the resource outputs of a nation’s basket and add them to arrive at a nation’s power. This summation method does not reflect 21st century perspective primarily because of the exponential growth of technology, particularly information technology, which is transforming the very nature of national 16 Entry into space automatically projected the need for exploiting the vertical dimension for human civilisation’s perennial requirement: ‘information.’ Obviously, a lot of effort in terms of research and development went into developing reconnaissance and surveillance systems, apart from high-speed communications.

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power of states. An attempt has been made by Ashley Telles et all, in their well researched RAND study, where they have analysed the measurement of national power with a 21st century perspective. Earlier studies have, however, important relevance for a clearer understanding of various parameters that contribute to national power. In most studies of national power, military power has been seen as representing national power. Political scientists Inis Claude17 and Karl Deutsh18 have viewed military power as the most important measure of national power. George Modelski and William Thompson have attempted to be more specific by using the size of naval forces as an indicator of projectible national power in their historical studies on the “long cycle” in international politics.19 Klauss Knorr was the first to deviate from the excessive focus on single index of military power, to include economic indicators in the measurement of national power.20 Charles Hitch and Rolan Mckean used national output or GNP, a variant index, as the main economic indicator that affects national power.21 Although Klauss Knorr was one of the earliest scholars to establish the fact that national power was composed of many variables, it was Clifford German who put across the first clear model of national power. He attempted to both identify discrete variables and specify their interrelationship in a power index as below: G = national power = N (L + P + I + M), Where N is nuclear capability, L is land, P is population, I is the industrial base, and M is military size.22 Each of these variables was further broken down into a series of factors, each of which was scored by a variety of criteria pertinent to the factor concerned. A similar non-linear (but somewhat simpler) multivariable index was proposed by Wilhelm Fucks in 1965, who sought to derive national power from three summation variables – population size (p), energy production (z), and steel production (Z1) – arranged in one of nine formulas for measuring national power (M), all of which were variants of one another and took the form of M = p2z, M = p3/2z, etc.23 Muir made an interesting study of the relative power of states, and found the whole exercise so complex which made him admit that-“it seems unlikely that a complete measure will ever be obtained”. Muir uses five variables – area, population, steel production, size of army, and number of nuclear submarines – to provide his rough estimates of national power.24 Norman Alcock and Alan Newcombe, in 1970, advanced a straightforward linear index of popular perceptions of national power that also utilised multiple variables such as per capita GNP, population, and population density. A similar linear index of capabilities, but one focussing on real national assets as opposed to the perception of those assets was devised by J. David Singer’s Correlates of War Project and published in 1972.25 Wayne Ferris constructed an index in 1973 that sought to provide scores on the capabilities of nearly all states in the system to nearly all other states during the period 1850-1966. This effort focussed on six variables – land area, total population, government revenue,

17 Inis L. Claude, Power and International Relations, (New York: Random House, 1962). 18 Karl W. Deutsch, The Analysis of International Relations, ( Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall), 1968. 19 George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Sea Power in Global Politics: 1494-1983, University of Washington Press: Seattle, 1987. 20 Klauss Knorr, The War Potential of Nations, Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1956. 21 Charles Hitsch and Roland Mckean, The Economics of Defence in the Nuclear Age, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1960. 22 F. Clifford German, A Tentative Evaluation of World Power in Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol 4, 1960. pp. 138-144. 23 Wilhelm Fucks, quoted in Ashley J. Tellis et all, Measurement of National Power in the Post Industrial Age, RAND Publications: Santa Monica, 2000. p. 29. 24 R. Muir, Modern Political Geography, (London: Macmillan, 2nd ed., 1981), pp. 149-150. 25 J. David Singer et al., ‘Capability Distribution, Uncertainty and Major-Power War’ in Bruce Russet (ed.), Peace, War and Numbers, (Beverley Hills: Sage, 1972), pp. 19-48.

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defence expenditures, value of international trade, and the size of the armed forces – in an effort to produce a historical comparison of international power for literally scores of countries.26 Finally the most widely recognised indexes of national power are the one devised by Ray S. Cline in 1977. This non-linear, multivariable index attempted to integrate both capabilities and commitment to create a formula that would rank order the perceived power of states. Cline’s formula for perceived power of a state is as follows: Pp = (C + E + M) (S + W)27 Where Pp = Perceived Power C = Critical Mass = Population + Territory E = Economic Capability (including income plus energy plus non fuel Minerals plus manufacturing plus food plus Trade) M = Military Capability (including the strategic balance plus combat Capabilities plus a bonus for effort) S = Strategic Purpose (i.e. the national strategy coefficient) And W = Will to pursue national strategy (including the level of national Integration, the strength of leadership, and the Relevance of strategy to the national interest) The first three represent the objective or tangible factors that could be measured, while the last two are subjective factors whose exact measurement would be difficult. If we analyse the tangible factors, we find that each of them could be measured clearly and thus find the relative power of any nation accurately. However, there is a dimensional change in this relationship. The traditional measurement of economic, political and military factors, as Cline and others have perceived, relates to the measurement of end product results such as GNP, population, territory, mineral wealth and other resources etc. The impact of technology was calculated only marginally through these end results. However, since late twentieth century the world is in the grip of a comprehensive and sweeping impact of technology in all areas. The result is, as Toffler sees it, the unfolding of a radical transformation of societies from industrial age to knowledge age societies. This is mainly due to rapid technological developments in four core areas of aviation, space, communication and computers, which can be clubbed together into aerospace technologies. In other words, the impact of aerospace technologies is leading to far reaching effects on economic, technological, political and military factors of national power. This is the most important development affecting national power in the twenty-first century. Most of the approaches to calculation of national power tended to rely on summation methods that added up output values from various resources. Finally, a nation’s power was seen in terms of its capacity to wage war and was ranked accordingly. In other words, the international order is worked out on the premise that the capacity for war was what ultimately distinguished the power of one country from another. Based on this premise, most assessments of national power have relied on a methodology which, using each country as a unit of analysis, treated each unit as a container of measurable resources and outputs. These methods did not factor-in various dynamic characteristics such as technology base, intellectual capacity etc. Cline's formula was refreshingly different in that it catered for, in addition to the calculation of resource outputs, two major intangible factors of strategy and national will. However, as

26 W. Ferris, The Power Capabilities of Nation-states, (Lexington: Lexington, 1973), p.58. 27 Dr. Cline made his assessment of global situation and national power during the peak of the Cold War. He perceived the world to be made of groupings based on geography, ideology etc and called them ‘polytectonic plates’; much of it is irrelevant today. However, his calculation of national power, based on tangible and intangible factors of the state, is very much applicable. Ray S. Cline, World Power Assessment 1977: A Calculus of Strategic Drift, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1977), p. 34. See also the revised edition, World Power Trends and US Foreign Policy for the 1980s, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980).

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Ashley J. Telles et all.,28 point out in their study, quantitative values to measure national power may not be sufficient to indicate the effective national power in future. The world economy model of Wallerstein and long-cycle of hegemony model of Modelski and Thompson provide a better framework for understanding and evolving the method for the measurement of national power. Alvin Toffler propounded that the world is in a transition from industrial age society to knowledge age society, and this hypothesis is now an established fact. This dictates the need for a more comprehensive approach that would factor the impact of knowledge technology on national power. Ashley J. Telles et all., have identified two characteristics that govern a modern state’s national power: “a country’s ability to dominate the cycles of economic innovation at a given point in time and, thereafter, to utilise the fruits of this domination to produce effective military capabilities”. Essentially a nation that leads in innovation and dominates in critical technologies will dominate the world. In other words being able to dominate the leading sectors of the global economy is that it makes attaining and maintaining hegemony possible.29 An analysis of modern history shows that the nation that achieved economic and technological lead was able to achieve military dominance, which, in turn, strengthened economic growth. In short control of leading economic sectors translates into military power, and is crucial to national power. Dominance obtains because “the country creating a major cluster of innovations often finds immediate military applications and propels itself to hegemonic status and maintains that status by that mechanism as well.”30 This analysis has already been seen in earlier pages on hegemony; however, it is necessary to re-emphasise this in the context of national power.

28 Ashley J. Telles et all., Measurement of National Power in the post-industrial Age, (Santa Monica: RAND Publications, 2000), p. 29 Ashley J. Telles et all., Ibid., p. 39. 30 Joshua S. Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age (New haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p.40.

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Figure 2: ‘Innovation and Technology’ Underlying Hegemonic Control in History

Genoa Champagne fairs, Black Sea Trade. 1190-1381 Venice Galley Fleets, Pepper Trade. 1381-1494 Portugal Guinea Gold, Indian Spices. 1517-1580 Dutch Republic Baltic and Atlantic Trade, Asian Trade 1609-1713 Britain I Amerasian Plantations and Trade 1714-1815 Britain II Textiles, Iron & Steel 1816-1945 Steam & Rail

USA I Steel, Auto, Chemicals, 1945-1992 Aviation, Electronics

USA II Information 1992-? Technology

Source: George Modelski and William R. Thompson, World Powers (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), P.69 and Ashley J. Telles et all, Measuring National Power in the Post Industrial Age (Santa Monica: RAND MR-110-A, 2000) P.40 Analysis of history indicates that technological innovation plays the major role in the build up of a state’s economic and military power, which then becomes crucial in its domination of the world system (figure 2). While Paul Kennedy emphasises that economic power is crucial to develop and sustain the necessary military power for achieving dominance, Thompson states that it is possible for a country to establish dominance through military power and then use it to facilitate economic growth. Ashley J. Telles et all., establish the crux of the linkage between national power and Great Power or hegemonic status - “ensuring that the hegemony generated as a result of either of these processes endures, however, requires the country in question - sooner or later - to both dominate the cycles of innovation and sustain

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the production of superior military capabilities. In the final instance, the latter simply cannot be assured without achieving the former.”31 National power in the 21st century will be a far more dynamic combination of military, economic, technological strengths, which has to continually factor rapid technological growth. Since national power is essentially a struggle for creation of wealth using all the means of power, nations will have to anticipate critical factors that lead to paradigm changes involving knowledge and technology. As Alvin Toffler emphasises-“the control of knowledge is the crux of tomorrow’s world-wide struggle for power in every human institution.”32 Michael E. Porter and Philip Kotler have identified the achievement of technological edge as the primary factor in their analysis of why certain nations possess or develop competitive advantage in their quest for increasing their wealth. According to them nations that focus on innovation and invention, and control the leading technologies, tend to attain competitive advantage in the international system. Competitive advantage is essential for creation of national wealth and wealth is essential for power.

Emerging Powers in Asia and Aerospace Power

The importance attaining significant technological expertise in Space, Nuclear Science, and Aviation was well recognised by the emerging powers of Asia quite early in their modern history. Japan was the inspirational leader for China and India when at the turn of the 20th century she defeated Russia in a crucial naval battle in 1905. Japan established all the necessary infrastructure in the early decades of the 20th century to transform itself into a major military and aviation power during the Second World War. Japan revived its technology base to become technologically one of the most advanced nations. China and India, beginning from scratch, displayed strategic foresight and vision to plan and invest in the development of their nuclear, Space, and aeronautical capabilities. At the turn of the 21st century China and India have emerged as major aerospace powers. Given the technological developments that have matured in the last three decades, the interdependency of air and Space systems has ensured that Air and Space will have to be treated as a single “seamless” entity. Hence the importance of the concept of aerospace capability becomes all the more important. Even the realisation of nuclear capability; be they through ballistic missiles, aircraft platforms, and associated early warning, and command and control; has to ride on aerospace capability.

Emerging powers aspire to close the technological gap with the leaders. This happens at the highest level of technology as it has security implications. Air and Space technologies, with Information and communication technologies as their subsets, are the top end of the technology spectrum. Consequently, aerospace focus is normal for a rising great power. Because great power status is highly desirable but scarce good, it is strongly contested. And since states seek security, potential great powers seek security through aerospace domain. China’s Aerospace Transformation China’s Aerospace growth, until 1990, has been slow and suffered from lack of access to technology. Besides, the Chinese leadership focused on attaining it goals in the Ballistic missile sector. Deng Xio Ping instituted the modernisation process in the late seventies, focusing primarily on trade, industrialisation, agriculture and economy. Once rapid economic growth was set in motion, other sectors came under close scrutiny. China’s operational doctrines underwent radical change from the concepts of ‘People’s War’ to ‘Limited war concept under informatised conditions’. PLAAF was given primacy, as lessons from the analysis of the 1991 Gulf War drove home the importance of aerospace power. All weather operations, precision weapons, sensors, BVR missiles, UAVs, and airborne operations became

31 Ashley J. Telles et all., Measurement of National Power., p.41. 32 Alvin Toffler, Powershift (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), p.20.

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important capability requirements. Doctrines were focused on air power intensive limited war, airborne operations, and integrated rapid reaction force concepts. China’s national strategy, from the 1990s, was clearly focused on developing strong aerospace capabilities. Accordingly, China’s aerospace progress is a planned strategy to clearly position itself to alter the international order. According to Jane’s – “China is poised to become a true aerospace giant during the 21st century. It is setting the stage to emerge as a truly global, economic, and military power by 2030 in direct competition with US, Japanese, and Russian interests.”33 For nearly three decades China’s GDP growth has averaged above 10%. This is a phenomenal growth rate. Per Capita GDP has grown more than 25 times. Today, the Chinese economy is the second largest in PPP terms (at $ 12.5 trillion as against USA’s $ 15.3 trillion). In dollar terms it is at $ 4.9 trillion, in third position behind USA and Japan. By 2030, the Chinese economy is set to overtake the size of USA’s economy in PPP terms. In short, in the span of less than three decades, China has evolved from a peripheral player to become the most potent engine in the global economy.

By 1990, major reorganisation was brought about in the education and research and development sectors with respect to Science and Technology. The corrective measures has given a quantum boost to the development of human resources and the science and technology capabilities are on a sharply rising trajectory. Since the early 1990s, spending on S&T by the Chinese government has been increasing at a rate approximately twice that of overall economic growth. In 2007, China spent US $ 50 billion on research and development (R&D), or 1.49% of its increasing gross domestic product (GDP), highest among countries with similar economic development level, though the percentage is still lower than that of most of the major developing economies.34 This has resulted in increasing number of well-prepared graduates being turned out by Chinese higher institutions. In 2006, China graduated some 159 000 students with masters and doctoral degrees in science and technology, on top of 1.34 million engineering undergraduates as well as 197 000 science undergraduates. Unequivocally, this represents the world’s highest output in terms of overall numbers.

Military modernisation is prioritised as critical to China’s emergence as a global power. Its official military expenditure crossed US $ 100 billion in 2012, unofficial estimates put it between US $ 120 billion to 180 billion. Aerospace modernisation is the core of this modernisation. The recent Chinese Defence white paper emphasises the objective of achieving dual transformation by 2020. The first transformation is to “informationize” the military – similar to network-centric operational capability in the West. The second transformation is enhance the military capabilities of the PLA to “win local wars in conditions of informationization”35. Modernisation efforts are focused on particular sectors in which to upgrade equipment and develop indigenous design capability. These sectors include C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence), naval shipbuilding, Space technology, Ballistic missiles, and Aerospace. China’s stated ambition is to achieve ‘leapfrog’ modernisation of its defence force, skipping intermediate levels of technology, to field capabilities, which are at parity with or exceed those of potential adversaries.36 Its key thrusts of military power modernisation include ‘anti-access and area denial threats to US basing, state-of-the-art surface-to-air missile (SAM) defences, and 4th generation air force with precision air-to-ground and air-to-air capabilities.

33 Jane’s, 1997: ‘China’s Aerospace Industry – The Industry and its products Assessed’, “Chapter 8” – Future Prospects, April 2. 34 In 2006 China became the world’s second-largest spender on R&D (US $ 136 billion), ranking only behind the USA (US $ 330 billion) (OECD, 2006). In Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao’s China’s Emerging Technological Edge: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. xviii. 35 Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, China’s National Defense in 2008 , Beijing, January 2009, http://english.gov.cn/official/2009-01/20/content_1210227.htm [accessed 11 July 2010], pp. 7-10. 36 Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, ‘China’s National Defense in 2008’, op. cit., pp. 27-28. The projection of China’s 2008 White Paper is that the achievement of a fully modernised force is not likely until the mid-21st century.

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By 1990s China accelerated its development programmes of fourth generation aircraft such as J-

10, JF-17, AWACS, air-to-air refueller, radars, sensors, and weapons. In 2000, the PLAAF was a huge force of nearly 3000 aircraft, but consisting largely of obsolete MiG-19 and Mig-21 technologies, with fourth generation Su-27 just entering the service. By 2010 PLAAF had downsized its force to about 1300 aircraft of primarily fourth generation aircraft such as the Su-27, Su-30 MKK, J-11, J-10, KJ-2000, KJ-200 etc. Its fifth generation fighter project J-20, is indicative of the rapid strides it has made in a short time. Simultaneously, China has devoted significant efforts to modernise its 2nd artillery and ISR capabilities. The principal role of the PLAAF has been territorial air defence of mainland China, with the predominant disposition of forces away from coastal regions in a ‘light front-heavy rear’ strategy. Commencing with the 2004 White Paper, China has sought to expand the role of the PLAAF to include Offensive air capability, with the intent to be able to project air power beyond China’s mainland. The ability to carry out strategic strike missions several thousand kilometres from the mainland is viewed as the key to becoming a truly independent service, rather than one dependent on the Second Artillery Force for an offensive strike capability, or operating in a supporting role for the ground forces.37 China’s Space projects have been accorded highest priority and designated as an area of critical strategic interest. Space, for China, is not only of great economic value but is of equally important military-strategic value. Space based force is recognized as a critical force-multiplier utilizing network-centricity to integrated all armed forces and their operations across vast distances. Chinese progress in space supports the belief in the importance of Space-based assets in support of China’s rise as a first rank military power. With the manned space flight in 2003, China has demonstrated rapid progress in its technological capabilities in Space. Its progress in closing the gap with the USA and Russia is demonstrated in its deployment of the ‘Beidou’ Navigation and positioning network, communications and earth imaging satellites, high-resolution spy satellites, demonstration of anti-satellite system, and ion-drive propulsion in new generation communication satellites. Of its 70 satellites in orbit, 40 are in control of the military. It intends to launch nearly 100 satellites between 2015 and 2020. It plans to deploy the complete constellation of 35 satellites for its own GPS system, the ‘Beidou’. Upgradation and new versions of its ‘Long March’ rockets will double the weight of its satellites that can be put into orbit. China plans to put a near earth orbital station by 2016, and launch a lunar expedition by 2020. Manned flight is a fundamental element in capturing world’s attention and underlining the clear political and prestige goals of the Chinese Space policy. China’s aerospace industry and its civil aviation capability have advanced significantly. Every major aerospace company in the world has invested in production and research in China. Major companies such as Airbus, Boeing, and Pratt & Witney outsource tier-1 and tier-2 work to China and also have trained Chinese technicians and engineers in huge numbers. China has slotted itself well into the global aerospace supply chain. Its civil aircraft programs such as the 95 seater, ARJ 921, and the bigger C-919 have benefitted immensely from this experience. China has a goal for its aerospace industry base to attain globally competitive capabilities. India’s Aerospace Capabilities India crossed a major threshold when it conducted a series of nuclear weapon tests and declared itself a nuclear weapon state in May 1998. This was a major transformation in signaling its intent to play a major role in global affairs. Since then it has conducted a series of missile tests, expanding its reach and capabilities. In the last two years India has achieved three significant milestones. It tested Agni V missile, a 5500 km range missile, thus entering ICBM domain. Its nuclear powered submarine ‘Arihant’ was launched for sea trials in 2012. Testing of the submarine-launched missile prototype, thus completing its 37 Mark Stokes and Ian Easton, Evolving Aerospace Trends in the Asia-Pacific Region: Implications for Stability in the Taiwan Strait and Beyond, Project 2049 Institute, Arlington, 2010, p. 18.

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triad of deterrence followed this. More importantly, in Aug 2013 India successfully achieved its cryogenic powered GSLV satellite launch, thus crossing the barrier of 5-ton payload launch capability. Reacting to India and Pakistan’s nuclear tests on 1998, analyst Harold Muller said the event has changed the parameters of world politics. He said they are as significant as the fall of the Berlin Wall. He saw India’s approach as seeing it as instrument of political power for achieving equality with China.38 India’s journey as an independent nation-state began in 1947 with little technological capability. Initial visionaries like Nehru, Homi Bhaba, Vikram Sarabhai, foresaw the need to establish structures that will enable India to gain technological mastery rapidly. Accordingly Nuclear and Space departments were strategized and controlled by experts with direct access to the prime minister. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is a success story of how a focused and efficient Space program could achieve major milestones at a fraction of the cost incurred by other space powers. The importance of becoming a space power was realized early not only from the great power prestige perspective, but more from economic and technological security perspective. Today ISRO is a world major in remote sensing capability. India’s space communications are entirely provided by ISRO. India’s ISR capabilities are now being addressed by ISRO through a series of dual use satellite launch programmes. Its Cartosat series of LEO orbit surveillance satellites provide high-resolution surveillance. By 2020 ISRO would meet the complete spectrum of ISR requirements for the military and Intelligence agencies. ISRO has launched the first of the series of IRNSS(Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) satellites. By 2020 India would have put into operation its regional Navigation and positioning system, a constellation of 11 satellites. Similarly, its satellite-based communications would strengthen its rapidly evolving network-centric system. Although, India continues to import a large amount of military equipment, its acquisition process is highly diversified such that its overdependence on any one source does not exist. However, it is rapidly indigenizing its equipment and also developing major design and development capabilities. Until recently Defence production was almost entirely in Public Sector. Since 2001, major policy changes have been continuously effected so as to encourage private sector participation and Joint Ventures with foreign companies in order to acquire advanced technologies. India has established major indigenous design and development programs such as the LCA (Light Combat Aircraft), aeroengine, sensors, ALH (Advanced Light Helicopter), LCH (Light Combat Helicopter) and weapon systems. While this is partially successful, India has attained the critical mass in technology to move the value chain. DRDO’s 55 laborotaries are actively engaged in the development of many technologies. Weapon systems, UAVs, Radars, missiles, aircraft, electronic warfare are the sectors in which major investment and research programs are underway. India’s vibrant private sector, and its significant strengths in IT sector will transform the Defence industry in the near future. India’s military, the Indian Air Force in particular, is third largest in the world. It has evolved very professionally, and the expertise is of a high order. One of the major contributory factors is its vast experience in training/exercising with major militaries in the world on a routine basis in the last 20 years, a factor that the Chinese do not have. Besides, Indian military has vast experience in peacekeeping operations of the UN for over 50 years. Both India and China, have devoted enormous efforts towards cyber security and strategy. India’s strength in IT sector could enable significant progress in this field.

Dimension of Technology in 21st century National Power

To assess the impact of technological dimension, particularly aerospace dimension, on national power, Cline’s method can be adapted to make it useful in assessing the various factors of national power. 38 Harold N. Mueller, ‘The Death of Arms Control?’.Disarmament Diplomacy, London, 29 August/September 1998, pp. 2, 4.

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It is easier to use Cline’s formula to analyse historically national power of states in the past as well as modify it to incorporate the emerging technological influences that govern national power in the 21st century. At various times during modern history technological revolutions have brought about major changes that impacted directly on one of the concrete elements and indirectly on the other two elements in Cline’s formula. However, the impact has been, by and large, restricted to a single factor. For example, the invention of the gunpowder, rifled gun, artillery, tanks, steam and diesel powered ships, aircraft etc impacted almost exclusively on military power. Of course, the invention of steam power, thermal power etc has had tremendous impact on the economic power as well. Similarly, developments in communications have led to major impact on the economic front.

New Methodology for Measurement of National Power

Since technology has become the major factor in a state’s ability or capacity to influence events, this aspect needs to be integrated into the calculation of national power. Ashley Telles et all., have looked at this aspect in a subjective manner and identified many activities and components of a nation that need to be considered. In their analytical framework for measuring national power, they have considered two distinct but related dimensions of capacity of national power: an external dimension, which consists of a nation’s capacity to affect the global environment through its economic, political, and military potential, and an internal dimension, which consists of a nation’s capacity to transform the resources of its society into “actionable knowledge” that produces the best civilian and military technologies possible. To capture these two fundamentally technology influenced dimensions, they recommend the assessment of national power in terms of three distinct realms:

- Measurement of ‘national resources’. - Assessment of ‘national performance’. and - ‘Military capability’ which is understood to be a resultant product of the continual, cyclic

interaction of both national resources and national performance. 39 While the above considerations are very relevant for the calculation of national power in the

21st century scenario, the measurement per se needs to be more mathematically defined. Cline’s formula, being reasonably comprehensive, lends itself well to cater for the current developments that affect assessment of national power in the 21st century international system. A factor that reflects the critical influence of technology, particularly aerospace technology, needs to be incorporated. Since aerospace power is the fundamental driver of knowledge-oriented industries, it plays a crucial role in all dimensions of national power. This is particularly relevant for the Great powers. Since it affects all three dimensions of tangible factors of national power, it needs to be introduced as a product variable rather than as a summation variable in the calculation of national power. Thus this technology dimension can be incorporated as a coefficient of aerospace power, which would modify the three tangible factors of C, E, and M in Cline’s formula for perceived power of a nation. Additionally the three tangible factors need to be modified to incorporate the assessments reflecting use of national resources, and military capability. The measurement of national power can then be tentatively seen as to reflect the importance of aerospace technology as given below:

Pp = (C + E + M) x (coefficient of aerospace power) x (S + W)

The intangible factors of Strategy and Will, (S+W), need to be replaced by a comprehensive factor reflecting various assessments under 'national performance’. The formula then becomes as follows: Pp = (C + E + M) x (coefficient of aerospace power) x (national performance)

39 Ashley J. Telles et all., Measuring National Power, pp. 44 - 51.

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An analysis of the impact of aerospace power on all three tangible factors, and the calculation of the coefficient of aerospace power can be seen in subsequent paragraphs. Critical Mass - “C” In cline’s method, critical mass ‘C’ relates only to population and size of territory. The critical mass denotes that minimum combination of territory, population and natural resources that enables a state to make significant impact on world affairs. In contrast to the traditional assessment of the relevance of territory and population to national power, aerospace power can impact on these factors in a manner that makes exploitation of these resources efficient many times over. Essentially the size of a nation’s population and territory is seen to reflect its power status. However, just a computation of total figures in terms of numbers and values of physical resources may not reflect the effective national power of a nation. The correct perspective emerges only when this is correlated with economic processes that effectively exploit these resources. The notion that large territory will automatically confer great power profile is no longer valid in the contemporary world. For example the former USSR, with rich resources and large geographical areas, did not achieve a higher standard of living and national power. Per capita GDP in Australia is lower than in Japan, even though Australian natural resources per capita are 150 times greater. Smaller countries like Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong have not only overcome the disadvantage of small territory and lack of resources but have used technology to enhance their competitive advantage and build wealth. In the current scenario and even more so in the future, technological skills have become an important factor in enabling a nation to exploit its resources, be it territory or population. Therefore, while the size of territory, its natural resources, and strength of population are important, they can become meaningful only if they are well integrated with technology for accumulation of effective national power.

However, in a world of 200+ nation-states, a careful analysis of the size and state of economic development of all nations would reveal that the majority of them have relatively little impact on international affairs or even on important developments in their own regions. The international order is determined and dominated by the Great Powers and a few states of significant economic power. Power being the language of international relations; the world order is always dominated by the powerful few. A basic requirement for the powerful few is a significant critical mass in terms of population and territory. In the 19th and 20th centuries, nations increased their national power by resorting to acquisition of colonies and territories through military operations. This increased their critical mass factor and, consequently, national power. The concept of nations increasing their territories through conquest was given a final burial at the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the United Nations made recognised national boundaries inviolable. Additionally, through factors such as high literacy levels and large-scale industrialisation and automation, western nations have reached a stage of negligible growth in population. Thus major powers found that their critical mass factors had reached finite levels due to finite territories and populations. Therefore, nations had to look for technology as a means to increase critical mass in a situation of finite territory and population. However, it is important to note that while it is hard to quantify, there does seem to be a kind of critical mass – a reflection of population and area – that a nation must ordinarily possess to make it felt in world affairs. Land area, along with its natural resources, determines the quantum of a nation’s wealth and, as a result, its possible national power. While many scholars such as Morgenthau, Haushoffer, or even Mackinder in earlier period, have focussed on the importance of geographical location, the size of the landmass does decide on the probable Great powers. In today’s world of nearly 200 states just about a dozen countries control nearly 70% of the world’s land mass. Their advantages are clearly evident.

Larger countries have enormous resources that can be exploited economically. This naturally confers a large amount of power and wealth on them and they naturally exert a large amount of pressure on the international system. The other element of critical mass is population. Large areas need large populations to exploit them. Additionally, larger the population greater is the ability of a nation to project power. This, however, depends on many factors such as literacy levels, technology, national character, social cohesiveness, patriotism etc. When all these factors combine positively, a high level of critical

24

mass is attained to contribute significantly to national power. Population, not only in numbers but also in terms of training and expertise, is one of the most important determinants of power.40 Similarly large territory is effective only if the state can exploit its resources.41 Ray S. Cline’s weightage factors for major powers on the basis of territory and population was reflective of the 20th century’s industrial age societies. It relied largely on physical dimensions of size and numbers. The major powers, as mentioned earlier, have by and large, reached a finite state wherein their critical mass will remain constant. However, the impact of technology will alter this steady state to a dynamic one, which will increase or decrease the critical mass. The critical mass, therefore, needs to be computed using following factors:

-Population in terms of strength, literacy rate, entrepreneurship (capacity for invention, innovation and diffusion), human resource factors (education system, research and development) -Territory in terms of area, location, natural resources, EEZ, and technology base for exploitation of resources.

In the light of the explosive growth in media, communications and information technology, and economic globalisation, the impact of aerospace power on the critical mass factors of population and territory can be enormous, particularly on emerging powers such as India and China. A large population can be a handicap if illiteracy levels are high. Under the industrial age mechanism, population growth far exceeds the gains made through old education system. Aerospace communications and media, now help states to reach out to their populations easily. As a result, rapid growth in education is now very much feasible.42 Large populations can now be turned into massive assets through exploitation of aerospace technologies. Similarly, aerospace power, using remote sensing etc, can enhance the value of fixed territory by discovering immense untapped natural resources on land as well as under seas in the EEZ. Advanced computer based technologies are leading to capabilities that enable efficient exploitation of these resources. Thus aerospace power has the potential of increasing significantly the value of ‘C’, that is the ‘Critical Mass’ factor of national power. Table 5 shows the estimated critical mass factor of major powers of the world in 2000.

40 A large population can be a tremendous boost to the strength of a nation particularly if literacy level is high, as in the case of Japan. On the other hand, over-population with its inherent problems of illiteracy and poverty can be a major liability and a serious social problem. Since population increases in geometric progression, the above social problems can become insurmountable in the industrial age world. 41 Large territory should also be seen in terms of productive landmass. Some of the bigger countries have enormous areas that are waste, or are otherwise ill suited for any kind of cultivation. The arable land of Russia is only 26%, that of Canada 6% and China 11%. 42 Illiteracy levels come down through large-scale exposure to satellite based programmes on television and media. Satellites have made distance education far more productive than it was even a decade ago. Internet has made education even more easily accessible and fruitful. As a result large segments of population, irrespective of age, can enhance their basic knowledge levels. Awareness about progress all over the world can be seen by a vast majority of the population, and this aspect becomes a driving force towards improving literacy rates. SITE progress initiated by India, with UN help, has gradually made considerable impact on rural population. The arrival and accessibility of satellite televisions and Internet to all parts of the country has made achievement of 100% literacy rate a distinct possibility in the short term. A population with high literacy rate is, probably, the most important contributor to national power. Britain achieved 100% literacy rate by the end of 18th century. Most European powers took nearly a century more to achieve the same. USA achieved the same by the end of 19th century. Peter the Great of Russia and Meiji emperor of Japan understood the value of literate population to national power, and accordingly instituted measures that focussed on enhancing the national literacy rate rapidly.

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Table 5: Critical Mass of Major Nations

(a) Population. Country Strength x Literacy + Entrepreneurship + HR Factors = Total

Weightage China 100 0.8 40 40 160 India 100 0.6 40 35 135 USA 50 1.0 50 50 150 Russia 45 1.0 40 45 130 Japan 50 1.0 50 50 150 EU 55 1.0 50 45 150 Australia 10 1.0 50 40 100 Indonesia 50 0.7 40 40 120 Pakistan 40 0.4 25 30 85 Brazil 55 0.7 35 20 120 Iran 40 0.7 20 20 68

(b) Territory. Country Area + Location + Natural + EEZ + Technology = Total

Resources Base Wtg of 100 Wtg of 10 Wtg of 50 Wtg of 10 Wtg of 30

China 100 08 30 05 20 163 India 95 08 40 09 20 172 USA 100 10 45 09 30 194 Russia 100 08 40 05 25 178 Japan 20 05 10 06 30 71 EU 55 08 40 07 30 140 Australia 95 05 25 08 25 158 Indonesia 50 06 25 08 20 109 Pakistan 35 05 20 05 10 75 Brazil 95 06 35 08 15 159 Iran 80 07 25 05 20 137

(c) Population + Territory

Country C (Population + Territory) China 323 (160 + 163) India 307 (135 + 172) USA 344 (150+ 194) Russia 308 (130 + 178) Japan 221 (150 + 71) E U 290 (150 + 140) Australia 258 (100 + 158) Indonesia 229 (120 + 109)

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Pakistan 160 (85 + 75) Brazil 279 (120 + 159) Iran 205 (68 + 137)

Economic Capability – “E” Economic power is a vital element of national power. Unhindered development of economic power or wealth of a nation is necessary to improve the living standards of its citizens. This is possible only in a secure environment. A secure environment for economic growth is guaranteed by military power. The economic strength of a nation provides the necessary support base for its military power. Economic strength is the basis on which a nation satisfies the needs of its people for goods and services, and also, on which it is able to build its organised military capabilities, to manufacture arms, to supply manpower, and to provide the logistic and technical support needed by modern armies, navies and air forces. Traditionally a nation’s economic strength has been indicated by its gross national product (GNP). This GNP is largely composed of manufacturing, industrial production, agriculture, trade and services. Growth in economic power is linked to achievement of efficient production processes and competitive advantage in international economic environment. To achieve and sustain competitive edge internationally, the nation needs to be in control of leading edge technologies. Traditionally, most strategists including Cline have used comparison of various economic strengths to arrive at a conclusion about ranking of nation-states. In short the assessment of a nation’s economic power was based on its comparative advantage. Today while most economists argue that economic power is the index of a nation’s strength whether this economic power is assessed in focus of comparative advantage or competitive advantage, has been debated intensely. Michel E. Porter has propounded the theory of competitive advantage that explores the causes that makes a nation’s firms and industries competitive and propels a whole nation’s economy. His theory may well supplant the 200-year-old concept of “comparative advantage” in economic analysis of international competitiveness.43 Trade and economic power of a nation is founded on the premise that competition is inherent in economic interaction amongst states. The transition from mass production based technology to knowledge-based technology has made competition even more intense as globalisation and leading technologies such as in aerospace and service sectors are being dominated by the major powers. Porter emphasises that the need for a new theory is the result of these changes brought about by technology, which must be recognised by nations if they want to be part of the group of leading economic powers. Aerospace technologies are revolutionary in that their focus on knowledge and information confers immense advantage over traditional industries whose cost efficiencies are based on mass and scale. Porter’s observation is pertinent in the light of aerospace power: “A new theory must start from the premise that competition is dynamic and evolving. Much traditional thinking has embodied an essentially static view focussing on cost efficiency due to factor or scale advantages. Technological change is treated as though it is exogenous, or outside the purview of theory. As Joseph Schumpter recognised many decades ago, however, there is no “equilibrium” in competition. Competition is a constantly changing landscape in which new products, new ways of marketing, new production processes, and whole new market segments emerge. Static efficiency at a point in time is rapidly overcome by a faster rate of progress. The new theory, therefore, must make improvement and innovation in methods and technology a central element. We must explain the role of the nation in the innovation process. Since innovation requires sustained investment in research, physical capital, and human resources, we must also explain why the rates of such investments are more vigorous in some nations and not others. The question is how a nation provides an environment in which its firms are able to improve and innovate faster than foreign rivals in a particular industry. This will also be fundamental in explaining how entire national economies progress, because technological change, in the broad sense of the term, accounts for much of economic growth.”44

43 Michael E. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, New York: The Free Press, 1990. 44 Ibid., p. 20.

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Japan is the best example of how a major economic power has recognised the changes being brought about by technology and has adopted effective strategies to position itself as a major power in control of leading edge technologies. Its industrial strategy was based on a long-term perspective. Japan started with low-skilled, labour-intensive industries; second to skilled-labour, raw material-intensive industries; and third, to knowledge-intensive industries (see Figure 3).45

Figure 3: Evolution of the Japanese Industrial Structure

(Knowledge-intensive Industries Computers, instruments, heavy machinery)

100 %

West Germany (1974) Japan (1985)

100% Japan (1974)

100% Medium Capita and Medium capital and Labour intensive raw material intensive Industries industries (Light machinery, motorcars) (Steel, plastics, fibres)

Japan (1959)

100%

Unskilled – Labour intensive industries

Source: Michael Best, The New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), Figure 3, p. 190.

Japan focused, in the early 1950s, on labour-intensive industries like cutlery, textiles, and toys. In the 1960s, it began to build competence in heavy industries- chemicals, coals, shipbuilding, and steel- in order to develop the key building blocks for the modern industrial infrastructure and for mass-producing

45 Philip Kotler et all., The Marketing of Nations (New York: The Free Press, 1997) pp. 224 -227.

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simple consumer goods. By the 1970s, the Japanese achieved dominance in precision instrumentation, such as cameras and machine tools, and in complex consumer products like automobiles, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. By the 1980s, they shifted their strategy to achieving world-class leadership positions in many knowledge intensive industries such as advanced electronics, computers, aerospace, and biotechnology (see Figure 4).46 Today Japan’s strategic brilliance shows in its exceptional economic and technological capability, which can transform into a powerful aerospace military power at short notice. All this has been achieved, in spite of being a small nation with minimal natural resources, primarily due to its focus on technology.47

46 Ibid., pp. 226 -227. 47 Japan possesses the technology and economic power to develop considerable aerospace and nuclear capability. It possesses nuclear fuels and technology to produce 1000-2000 atom bombs. Recently Japan imported a large quantity of nuclear materials. It can make ICBMs as it has successfully tested the H2 rocket. Japan’s defence spending is second only to the USA. For more analysis see Gao Heng, ‘Future Military Trends’ in Chinese Views of Future Warfare, ed., Michael Pillsbury, (New Delhi: Lancer publishers, Indian edition, 1998), pp. 85-94.

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Figure 4: The Dynamism of the Japanese Industrial Portfolio 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s

Time Scale

Source: Barrie G. James, Trojan Horse: The Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry (New York: Mercury Books, 1990), Figure 1.1, P. 6.

When Cline advanced his formula, the world economy was divided along ideological lines, Capitalism and Communism. Today communism is dead, and the world, almost entirely, has accepted the relevance of free market economy. Cline based his economic power assessment primarily on a nation’s GNP, energy resources, minerals, industry, food, and trade. In today’s environment these parameters are insufficient to reflect the national power. Today economic power should be measured in terms of quantity, quality and potential. GNP is only one of the indicators. The increasing role of technology in the economic power of nations is very obvious and this needs to be considered in any assessment. As Alvin Toffler says - “the way we make war is the way we make wealth”, which means economic power, technology and military power are interrelated. Philip Kotler says that each nation has to factor certain trade offs in its quest for economic power: technology transfer means higher dependence in international relations; international competitiveness of a nation is often built at the expense of other nations, leading them to retaliate.48 However, it is imperative for nations that aspire to be great powers to achieve core

48 Philip Kotler and et all., op cit., p. 26.

Ceramics Clothing Cutlery Fibres Foot ware Paper Toys

Heavy

Industries:

Aluminium Chemicals Coal Rubber Ship building Steel Consumer Products: Bicycles Motor Cycles

Heavy Electrical

Engineering:

…………… Engineering Ball Bearing Machine Tools Common Products: Appliances Cameras Cars Electronics Pharmaceuticals Semi conductors

Knowledge intensive Industries: Advanced electronics Aerospace Biotechnology Computers Info Tech Medical electronics New materials Robotics

Val

ue-A

dded

Com

pone

nt

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competencies in critical technologies. Economic power for great powers will be effective only if it is founded on control of critical technologies such as aerospace technologies. The increasing economic dimension of aerospace power has become significantly evident since the last decade of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the economic power of major nations or great powers will depend largely on the extent of their aerospace power. Aerospace technologies are taking up increasing share in national economies and world trade. While the USA has been the leader in this field and started early, rest of the world i.e. Europe and Japan are garnering greater share in this economic fare. Other major nations such as China, India and Brazil are making significant strides to make an impact on the aerospace market. This is shown by some important statistics.

- The economic impact of aerospace technology began with aviation industry, but now spans space launch, satellites, communications, information technology, Internet etc and also involves allied industries such as computers and microelectronics. The increasing role of aerospace in US industry is a good example. In 1948, the US aerospace industry had sales of almost $1.5 billion; by 1991 this figure exceeded $134 billion.49 Its influence on the economy is seen from its position as the nations top net exporter and its number six position in industry in terms of value shipments in 1991.50

A synergistic relationship exists between the military aerospace and commercial aerospace sectors. Laura D’Andrea Tyson describes this thus: “The synergies between the military’s emphasis on performance and flexibility and the commercial sector’s emphasis on cost and reliability have been central to aircraft technology and innovation.”51 She goes on to note “a competitive commercial aircraft industry thus contributes to a nation’s military prowess.” The maturing of space power in the nineties has led to an explosion of economic benefits. Space related functions could be analysed along a spectrum, with commercial, civil, intelligence, international and military sectors having different degrees of importance in each. Space launch is one of the important commercial sectors. According to Euroconsult’s launch market survey, the world space launch services is expected to total more than $34 billion during 1997-2007, a sharp increase as compared to $18.3 billion in previous ten year period of 1987-1996. The major reason has been due to the revolution in communications and information technology. Manufacture and sale of satellites, leasing of transponders etc, are other areas of explosive growth in economic terms. The world is being networked like never before and all this translates into tremendous economic benefits. Aerospace capabilities cover remote sensing, GPS navigation, environmental monitoring, e commerce and trade, Internet communications etc. Therefore, the role of aerospace technology on a nation’s ‘E’ component can be enormous as information technology, computers, space-based communications, and Internet propel national economies into exponential growth profiles. Keeping the above factors in mind, a reasonably exhaustive assessment of economic power could be made using the following criteria: -‘Technological capability’ of the country in terms of control and development of critical

technologies. -‘Production capability’ of energy (fossil, technological including nuclear), food (gross and per

capita), and strategic minerals. -‘GNP’ including per capita GNP, rate of growth in GNP, exports, and growth rates in various

sectors. The tentative calculation of economic power of the major powers of 21st century would be as

given below:

49 Aerospace Industries Association of America, Inc., Aerospace Facts and Figures: 92-93, Washington: Aerospace Industries of America, Inc., p.13. 50 James W. Chung, “Whither US Aerospace Industry?,” Breakthroughs, Winter 1992/93, p.12. 51 Laura Tyson, Who’s bashing whom? Trade Conflict in High Technology Industries, (Washington: Institute for International Economics, 1992).

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Table 6: Economic Power of Nations E =[GNP X (Per Capita GNP Factor + Rate of GNP Growth Factor)] + Energy + Food + Exports/ Imports + Technology

Country GNP Per Capita GNP

Factor

Rate of GNP

Growth Factor

Energy Food Exports/

Imports

Technology Total

Wtg 100 Wtg 25 Wtg 25 Wtg 25 Wtg 25 USA 9963/100 1.0 0.5 15 25 15 25 230 Russia 1120/20 0.5 0.6 20 15 20 20 97 China 4500/50 0.4 0.8 15 20 20 20 135 India 2200/35 0.3 0.6 10 20 10 20 92 Japan 3150/70 0.9 0.2 05 20 25 25 152 UK 1360/25 0.9 0.3 20 25 18 20 115 France 1448/30 0.9 0.3 15 25 20 22 118 Germany 1936/32 0.9 0.3 15 25 25 23 126 Brazil 1130/20 0.5 0.4 15 20 10 18 81 Iran 413/5 0.5 0.3 20 20 05 10 59 Indonesia /10 0.4 0.5 20 20 10 15 74 Australia 445/5 0.9 0.5 15 20 10 15 67 Pakistan 282/3 0.2 0.5 10 20 3 5 40

Note: Figures relate to the year 2000. Military Capability – “M” Military capability is the third and, probably, the most important tangible factor of national power. As Ashley Tellis says-‘the ultimate yardstick of national power is military capability.’52 Because the international system is anarchic, the prospect of external and internal threats on nations is very real. Military power is an essential tool for a nation-state to ensure its security, protect its national interests and further its national objectives. The military capability of a nation should be assessed in terms of its effectiveness in being able to deter and coerce as well as defeat/destroy its adversaries. When a state perceives a threat to its national interests, the use of military force is considered, and at this point effective military capabilities become all important. Military capability, therefore, becomes the ultimate output of national power. The military power of a state should have three crucial capabilities: 1) effective deterrent capability, 2) ability to successfully prosecute war against another state, and 3) ability to successfully prosecute war against adversaries other than a state/states. For a major power the first capability is possible only when it possesses nuclear and aerospace power. Practically nuclear deterrence is part of aerospace power. To achieve the second capability, as a major power the state should posses control over leading edge military technologies as well as adapt its doctrines, strategy, and tactics of warfare to exploit those technologies. The third capability can be effective and successful only when the state employs advanced technologies such as surveillance and precision to neutralise these adversaries. A deeper analysis of these requirements indicates that aerospace power is the crux of their solutions.

52 Ashley Telles and et all., Measuring National Power, p. 133.

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The impact of aerospace power on the third concrete element of national power, military power ‘M’, is the most profound. Aerospace technologies have ushered in a significant revolution in military affairs due to rapid strides being made in areas of communication, information, intelligence, automation, navigation, artificial intelligence, precision weapons, aviation and space technology. It is obvious now that these technologies are becoming interdependent commercially and militarily. Aerospace power is bringing about radical changes in the characteristics of the military power of a nation. These manifest themselves in four crucial areas of warfare in such a manner that these would change the very nature of warfare in the future. The four areas are: -Information -Command and Control -Precision and -Penetration. Advanced sensors and other technologies are leading to near real time information gathering and processing capability. With artificial intelligence this capability would increase many times over and become more reliable. The principles of command and control are being rewritten as technology of modern sensors, airborne and space-based, will provide a three dimensional view of the battlefield, and through networked command and control enable commanders to achieve real-time decision-making. Precision and penetration are capabilities that stem from aerospace technologies. Added to this is the importance of information warfare and cyber warfare that transcend traditional boundaries of military power and economic power. The two are now so interdependent that economic and military powers have to function more or less as one. Technology, per se, does not reflect military capability of a nation. Effective military capability comes from efficient exploitation of technology in the conduct of war. While war is impacted by technology in all its forms there are many other factors that go to make a military effective. As Martin Van Crevald says: “Weapons and weapon systems make their power felt principally during their combat, but war consists of much else besides. Apart from tactics, there are operations, strategy, logistics, intelligence, C3 (command, control, communications), and organisation, to mention but a few. Naturally, all of these are affected by weapons, are also strongly influenced by other kinds of hardware, as well as by technology in its abstract sense.”53 It is therefore important that when assessing military capability, the extent to which technological integration and upgradation has been achieved is analysed. According to Cline, analysis and estimates of military power has also to take into account many tangible factors such as manpower figures, combat units, equipment inventories etc, and intangible factors such as troop skill and morale, the quality of military leadership, the coherence of operational strategies, and the supreme intangible of political morale. In addition, a factor relating to strategic reach, which is a function of geographic position as well as of the long-range mobility of the armed forces concerned needs to be factored in. Another important factor is the scale of military effort, which is the percentage of GNP that a nation spends on ensuring its military power. Development of aerospace weapons and systems are transforming the above factors considerably so as to change the capabilities in a very significant manner. Thus largely quantitative assessments could be modified to include the dynamic parameters that are more important in computing effective military capability. Some of these are:

• ‘Manpower’ in terms of numbers and quality, including para military forces, educational levels of officers and ranks.

• ‘Military infrastructure’ which includes bases, installations, production centres, repair depots, resource bases, communications, mobilisation infrastructure etc.

• ‘Research and Development’ capability in terms of infrastructure including institutions, labs, and successful technologies produced.

• ‘Defence Industrial Complex’ in terms of production, technology, and exports. • ‘Weapon Inventory and Combat Support’. • ‘Strategic Capability’ including nuclear and space capabilities and infrastructure.

53 Martin Van Crevald, Technology and War: From 2000 B C to the Present, (London: Brasseys, 1991), p. 2.

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• ‘Combat Proficiency and Capacity for Innovation’. • ‘Doctrine, Strategy, Tactics’ and methods of training and development.

Table 7: Military Power of Nations Country Manpower

Wtg 100

Infrastructure

Wtg = 10

Nuclear Capability

Wtg=25

Aerospace Capability

Wtg=25

Conv Wpns

Wtg=10

Doctrine & Strategy Wtg=10

Force Ratio

Wtg=10

Total

USA 80 09 25 25 09 09 08 165 Russia 80 08 24 24 08 08 04 156 China 90 06 19 19 05 06 06 151 India 85 05 15 15 06 05 06 137 UK 45 08 18 15 07 07 07 107 France 50 08 20 20 08 0708 07 120 Germany 40 08 0 10 07 07 08 80 Japan 40 08 0 20 07 07 08 90 Indonesia 60 06 0 05 06 05 05 87 Brazil 45 06 0 05 06 04 04 70 Pakistan 60 06 07 02 05 06 02 88 Iran 40 05 0 0 04 04 04 57 Technology Factor or Aerospace Coefficient As brought out earlier, the impact of technology, particularly aerospace technology is profound on the extent of national power of any country. The impact of technology on national power has grown exponentially since the end of the Second World War. The dominance of the international order is increasingly becoming technology intensive since the last decade of the 20th century. It is almost imperative for leading powers, which determine the international order, to be at the cutting edge of technology in order to be effective in world affairs. In short political, economic and military powers of a nation are technology dependent and, therefore, any assessment of national power would be incomplete without the technology factor. The technology factor is essentially aerospace power coefficient. In a macro level analysis, as brought out earlier, aerospace technologies are the drivers of the current technological revolutions. Aerospace technology, which is the fusion of aviation, space, communication, and computers, is generating applications in a variety of fields that have tremendous economic and military connotations. Information technology, which is supposedly driving the knowledge revolution, is essentially a result of the above fusion. Analysis of these developments shows that aerospace power has become a critical element of national power. It becomes obvious that international power struggle in the 21st century will be dominated by nations that can be called aerospace powers. In short, major powers will necessarily have to be space faring nations and, hence, aerospace powers. One of the chief results of aerospace technology is the information technology, arguably the most pervasive technology of our time. The precipitous rise of the information-technology industries has proved to be a major driver of economic growth, stimulating the innovation of new products and processes in all other branches of industry, promoting structural change throughout the economy, and constantly facilitating the development of new service sectors. The impact of IT spans manufacturing, services, and government (including Defence). The most important characteristic of IT is that it deals with knowledge. Rapid developments in computers and the digital revolution have allowed enormous amounts of information to be stored and processed. This allows knowledge to be diffused more rapidly and so makes it easier for nations to leapfrog development stages. 21st century economy is now a knowledge economy.

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This new knowledge economy is characterised by an accelerating pace of technological change. The aerospace and information technology is more sophisticated than any previous industrial age technology. The industrial age technologies depended on physical motion and enormous amounts of energy and materials to operate. In contrast, the intelligent technologies of today are digital, programmable entities, capable of capturing and processing information and communications in many forms, with universal application. They operate by the manipulation of electrons and photons, inside materials rather than outside, using a minimum of physical resources and energy. The qualitative difference of knowledge based industries means that they are not constrained by scarce physical resources in the way earlier industries have been, and in principle this provides limitless opportunities for innovation and growth. In the knowledge economy of 21st century, the only real factors of production, and the only real limits to economic growth and prosperity are knowledge, creativity, imagination, and intelligence. The impact of this technological development on national economies, and consequently on national power, is immense. A report by the OECD on ‘The Knowledge based Economy (1996)’ estimates that more than half the total GDP in the rich economies is now knowledge based, including industries such as telecommunications, computers, software, pharmaceuticals, education and television. In another important sector, satellite communications and the Internet development are leading to extensive networking of the world. Networking technology also enables nations to derive extensive advantages in communications, command and control, and information dominance. The growth of Internet has been phenomenal. The Internet is one of the most important and dynamic developments of aerospace technology. Its rate of growth is, probably, unprecedented in human history. It began as a US department of Defence experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of interconnecting computing devices. Four computers were interconnected in 1969; by 1984 this had risen to 1000; in 1995 it had reached 10 million, at which time the Internet encompassed 70,000 computer networks worldwide. Users of the Internet exceeded 100 million by 1998 and one billion by 2000. Apart from assisting economic development, aerospace technologies are providing tremendous opportunities for nations like India to leapfrog over development stages through rapid spread of education for its masses. For example advances in telecommunications allow access to education and information even in the most remote areas of developing countries. Village telephones and television in India have had a major impact. Modern satellite communications, media, Internet, television, and cellphone etc are tools that help the masses to enhance their awareness and education. The large population, which so far has been seen as a major impediment to growth, is now on the threshold of being converted into a major asset through education and awareness. As literacy levels increase rapidly population growth tends to reduce and the total population will stabilise at a much lower level than predicted. In a more important cascading effect, a literate population becomes a national asset as they participate in national productivity, and this impacts positively on economic, political, social, technological, and military spheres of national power. Finally aerospace dominance allows a state to achieve dominance in precise and decisive military force application, coercive ability as well as diplomatic advantage. The synergistic function of air and space technologies provides immense potential in the development and exercise of national power. For example space-based satellites provide the necessary information for aircraft and other aerial systems in their function towards efficient achievement of their tasks: be it commercial or military transportation systems, communications, weapons, rescue, disaster management, early warning, survey, weather prediction and warning, remote sensing, oceanography and many more. The coverage of aerospace spectrum is immense. The personal computer, live television, worldwide 24-hour news, precision weapons, and cyclone/hurricane warnings are just a very few of the estimated 307,000 secondary

35

applications from aerospace systems development and use.54 Aerospace spectrum covers a wide variety of functions in commercial, civil and military sectors as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5: Aerospace Spectrum in National Power

Satcom Remote Sensing

Environmental Monitoring

Satellite Navigation

Aerospace Control

Missile Defence

Force Application

EW, Surveillance, Recee

Commercial Civil Military

So how does one measure aerospace technology factor as an influencing element of national power? Assessing the critical technological factors, the absence or presence of which contribute to the national power negatively or positively, which in turn determines the effectiveness of a state in the international system, should do this. Scholars strengthen such a view in various forms. Ashley Telles emphasises that the focus on technology, as a building block of national power, is centred exclusively on understanding a country’s ability to produce the most sophisticated “critical technologies” identified today. These span areas in information and communications, materials, manufacturing, biotechnology and life sciences, aeronautics and surface transportation, energy, and environment.55 These technologies tend to develop in clusters of related areas simultaneously. According to Kotler, modern technological development tends to function in clusters and results in tremendous spill over, fusion, and interactive effects leading to development in many other areas.56 Aerospace technology is particularly effective in leading to various spillover, fusion and satellite effects. Some of the fusion technologies are shown in figure 6.

Figure 6: Fusion Technologies

Biotechnology Fusion Technology

54 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA Facts, August 1995, document FS- JSC - 95(08) - 004, and James E. Oberg, Space Power Theory, Online, www.peterson.af.mil/usspace/SPT/overview.htm, Internet, 2000, p. 124. 55 Ashley Telles and et all., Measuring National power, pp. 53-65. 56 Philip Kotler and et all., Competitive Advantage of nations, p. 207.

Aviation Aerospace Spectrum Space Launch

Bioelectronics

Neutral Networks Bio - Computer

36

Source: Michel E. Porter and et all, The Marketing of Nations, P.207 Currently there are nearly thirty emerging technologies that are related to aerospace technologies and which would significantly affect national power of major nations. Space related technology alone is advancing at such a rapid rate, that space has already become a crucial centre of gravity in international power struggle. Military, civil, and commercial space sectors are converging, if not already have converged, and this is leading to an inevitable necessity for major nations to have space faring ability. In 1996, more than 1100 commercial companies across 53 countries were developing, manufacturing, and operating space systems. This is increasing at an exponential rate. By 2010 there is likely to be over 1000 satellites in orbit, of which countries other than USA and Russia would launch nearly 60% of these satellites. Aerospace technologies, therefore, impact on every aspect of tangible factors of national power. The technological factor of national power, therefore, could be measured by evaluating following factors with respect to each nation:

• Spacecraft launch capability, including possession of technology to design, manufacture, and operate launch vehicles, satellite, re-entry technology etc.

• Satellite communications and precision technologies. • Aviation technology. • Ability to monitor and control space platforms.

Fuzzy Logic

Biotechnology

Fire Ceramics

Biotechnology

Bio - Ceramics

Common Networking

Bio-Communication

Optics

Mechanics

Electronics

Opto mechatonics

37

• Information technology including software and hardware. • Space based reconnaissance, surveillance, and early warning capability. • Aerospace Research and Development status and infrastructure. • Nuclear technology, including weapons, missiles, and energy weapons. • Use of aerospace in education and allied sectors. • Allied technologies such as biotechnology, computers etc.

All these factors could be clubbed under major heads of aviation, space, nuclear, computers, and IT to assess the aerospace technology coefficient. The state that has the most advanced technologies in all these fields is assigned a weightage factor of 1 (the USA, naturally is assigned 1). The others are rated accordingly on a range of value from 0.01 to 0.99. Obviously, a nation that does not have the ability to put a satellite in orbit and is not a nuclear power will not have the ability to influence the world affairs on its own. A tentative computation of the technology factor for various nations is shown in Table 8.

Table 8: Calculation of Aerospace Coefficient

Countries Space Aviation Nuclear IT Computers

Space Launch

Capability

Satellite Technology

R&D in Aerospace

Nuclear Techno

logy

IT Develop

ment

Allied Tech

Total Average Weight-

age

USA 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 Russia 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.8 0.8 5.6 0.93 China 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 4.2 0.7 India 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.8 0.4 4.3 0.71 UK 0.2 0.8 0.5 0.8 0.7 0.7 3.7 0.61 France 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 4.6 0.75 Germany 0.2 0.7 0.6 0.2 0.6 0.6 2.9 0.48 Brazil 0.2 0.5 0.6 0.2 0.4 0.5 2.2 0.36 Indonesia 0 0 0.2 0 0.4 0.3 0.9 0.15 Iran 0 0 0.2 0 0.2 0.1 0.5 0.09 Pakistan 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.1 1.2 0.20 Japan 0.8 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.9 0.9 5.2 0.86

The criticality of this aerospace coefficient is borne by the vast differences in the effectiveness of

national power of various countries where some are space faring and some are not. The conclusion that aerospace power is a critical element of national power is shown clearly in the following Table 9. Application of aerospace coefficient, as a product factor, brings about vast disparities in the national powers of nations that are aerospace powers and those who are not.

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Table 9: National Power or Perceived Power of States (Based only on Tangible Factors)

Country C + E + M = Total Aerospace Coefficient

PP = Total X Aerospace Coefficient

USA 344 230 165 739 1.0 739 Russia 308 97 156 561 0.93 522 China 323 135 151 609 0.7 426 India 307 92 137 593 0.71 421 Japan 221 152 90 463 0.86 398 EU 310 205 115 630 0.75 472 Brazil 279 81 70 430 0.36 155 Indonesia 229 74 87 390 0.15 59 Iran 205 59 57 321 0.09 29

Conclusion

Aerospace Power as a Measure of Emerging Powers

The theoretical basis that governs the factors that make up national power has been explained earlier in this study. Analysis of modern history has clearly established the fact that power of nations depended on a balanced composition of economic, political and military strengths. The theoretical analysis has also established the fact that hegemonic rise of any major power at different periods, was centred on the establishment of its supremacy in economic, technological and military fields. In each of these periods, a power struggle among nations was won by the state or group of states that dominated the “critical technologies” governing military and economic power. Great powers, therefore, necessarily had to achieve supremacy in leading technologies that enabled applications in civil and military fields. The emerging transformation of the world towards a knowledge bound society is now an established fact. As brought out earlier, the fusion of technological developments in the core areas of aviation, space, communications and computers has effectively become the most important driver of various technological developments since the late 20th century.

Nations that identify the vast capabilities that aerospace technologies provide will be the ones who will innovate and exploit their capabilities to enhance their aerospace power and hence, their national power. China and India have clearly recognised the critical importance of being major aerospace powers in their quest for great power role in global affairs. Both nations have identified that aerospace is critical to – 1) military dominance, and 2) important to overall technological dominance. With boundless potential for scientific advance, it provides tremendous, military, economic, and political rewards.

Thus aerospace power has in the 21st century, become a critical element of national power.

Since international system has always been dictated and dominated by the major powers, (who

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dominate the world economically and militarily) it becomes obvious that these Great Powers will necessarily have to be aerospace nations.

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