Author: Our Special Correspondent
Publication: The Hindu
Date: March 31, 2004
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/31/stories/2004033109421600.htm
The national security index, an
attempt to quantify the national power of countries, has placed India among
the top 10 countries. With a national security index of 0.384, India is
ranked eighth.
It is below the United States and
China, ranked first and second, respectively, Japan, South Korea, Sweden,
Russia and Germany, but narrowly beats France, the United Kingdom and Israel.
The national security index, published
in the latest National Security Review is based on five variables - defence
capability, gross domestic product, human development levels, besides research
and development levels.
The Review also has a "defence index,"
which takes into account not just the defence expenditure but also the
number of armed personnel in the armed forces with equal weightage to both
the factors.
This index throws up a new list
altogether with many powerful European countries not figuring in the top
10 though U.S. and China occupy the first two positions.
Russia with a huge conventional
army is placed third and India occupies the fourth slot. Korea is placed
fifth followed by Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Japan and France. Germany is
in the eleventh position, which it shares with Vietnam.
In terms of defence expenditure,
the U.S. is ranked first, followed by Russia, China, Japan, the U.K., France,
Germany, Saudi Arabia and Italy. In the armed forces index, China, the
U.S. and India occupy the first here slots, followed by Russia, South Korea,
Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Vietnam and Egypt.
This year's national security index
is based on the same five variables as the first one released last year
but the list of countries has been expanded from 30 to 50.
Most of the earlier attempts in
western countries tended to quantify national power based on the military
capability of a country.
Satish Kumar, the Review's editor,
has based the security index on the later Rand Corporation model which
measures national power on the basis of national resources, national performance
and military capability.
