National power is defined as the sum of all resources available to a nation in the pursuit of national objectives. Assessing the national power of political entities was already a matter of relevance during the classical antiquity, the middle ages and the renaissance and today. Classics Shang Yang, Guan Zhong and Chanakya, widely discussed the power of state. Many other classics, such as Mozi, Appian, Pliny the Elder, also concerned the subject. Herodotes described whence derives the power of Babylon. The considerations of Hannibal on the matter is found in Titus Livy.
Elements of national power
National power stems from various elements, also called instruments or attributes; these may be put into two groups based on their applicability and origin - "natural" and "social". Natural: Geography Resources Population Social: Economic Political Military Psychological (National morale) Informational
Geography
Important facets of geography such as location, climate, topography, size and resources play major roles in the ability of a nation to gain national power. The relation between foreign policy and geographic space gave rise to the discipline of geopolitics including the concepts of lebensraum and "grossraum". The latter is a region with natural resources sufficient for autarky.
Space has a strategic value. Russia's size permitted it to trade space for time during the Great Patriotic War. To a less extent, the same is true for China in the war against Japan.
Location has an important bearing on foreign policy of a nation. The presence of a water obstacle provided protection to states such as Ancient Rome, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States. The geographic protection allowed Rome, Japan, and the United States to follow isolationist policies, and Britain the policy of non-involvement in Europe. The presence of large accessible seaboards also permitted these nations to build strong navies and expand their territories peacefully or by conquest. In contrast, Poland, with no obstacle for its powerful neighbours, lost its independence from 1795 to 1918 and again from 1939 to 1989.
Since Antiquity, the importance of climate was stressed, with the temperate zone being regarded as favoring great powers. Aristotle in Politics argued that the Greeks, placed in the temperate zone, qualify for world domination. Pliny the Elder observed that in the temperate zone, there are governments, which the outer races never have possessed.
The temperate zone as power factor remained widely stressed in the modern research. In fact, all modern great powers have been located in the temperate zone. A.F.K. Organski criticized this hypothesis as "an accident of history." The Industrial Revolution happened, by accident, in the temperate zone and so far, also by accident, there are no major industrial nations outside this zone. But the world will become industrial, "now that the industrial revolution is galloping triumphant throughout the world."
Organski abandoned the theory of temperate zone as untenable. By contrast, Max Ostrovsky developed it further. He doubted historical accidents. Writing half-a-century after Organski, he noted that the Industrial Revolution is still not "galloping triumphant throughout the world" but remains bound to the temperate zone. Moreover, vast temperate zones of Turkestan and Mongolia do not generate great powers. It appeared that besides the mild temperature, a right amount of rain was necessary, as only humid temperate areas have been sources of great power.