Inventory based approaches are painfully unsophisticated, five assumptions underlying them- power can be quantified at different levels to can be enumerated on a table and compared, 2nd power can be possessed and held in reserve awaiting deployment, "potential" added to the power of the state, 3rd power is equated with resources, 4th different resources can be related to one another as equivalents, suggesting there is a general essence of power, 5th spatial characteristics of a state can increase of reduce its political power