The Spoils of Conquest

the modern era? Are industrial economies ”cumulative resources” that can be mobilized by foreign conquerors? This question lies at the root of important international relations debates. Realists have claimed that conquest pays, especially the conquest of modern industrial societies, but liberals argue that the conquest of modern societies is economically futile. These opposing viewpoints represent different theories about the way the world works, and support divergent foreign policies. Since conquest pays, according to the realist view, the more you conquer, the more wealthy and powerful you become. Rulers have economic and security incentives to expand. Status-quo states must rely more heavily on threats of war to contain expansionists, and on war itself if threats fail to deter. Unless they are contained, imperial rulers will swallow up weaker nations, growing stronger and more invincible with each new conquest. Realists conclude that only the vigilance of defensive coalitions stands in the way of an Orwellian nightmare of huge clashing despotisms, or even a single world empire. In the liberal view, we live in a more benign world. Since conquest is unprofitable, rulers have no economic incentive to expand and are thus less covetous of neighboring real estate. Expansionists would only weaken themselves by blundering into costly quagmires, falling behind more economically dynamic nation-states, and eventually collapsing from imperial deficits and rebellion. Since aggressors are rare and less dangerous, status-quo states can more safely afford disarmament and isolation. According to liberals, the unprofitability of conquest strengthens the harmony of interests among states, and thus strengthens international peace and cooperation. Peter Liberninn IS AssisfnnfProfessor of Political Sciericr at Tulane University This article draws on my “Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Economies ” (Ph.D dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 1992). Among the many teachers and colleagues who have given me invaluable suggestions, I would like to thank Douglass Forsyth, Kenneth Oye, Stephen Van Evera, and most of all Barry Posen. Support for this work was provided by MIT’s Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. /Jlte?’?latfUJ7a/ Security, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 1YY3), pp. 125-153 0 1993by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 125 International Security 18:2 I 126 In fact, however, as this article shows, conquerors have made conquest pay in modern times. The explanation, I argue, lies in basic facts of modernization , illuminated by theories of coercion and collective action. Modernization makes societies wealthy, and thus increases the social surplus potentially mobilized by conquerors. Modernization also increases the efficiency of coercion and repression. The result is that coercive and repressive conquerors can make defeated modern societies pay a large share of their economic surplus in tribute. This conclusion has important implications for our understanding of international politics. First, it reaffirms the age-old realist dictum that it is wise to contain expansionists, especially those that threaten industrial heartlands. A second implication is that the international system is more war-prone than liberals claim. If conquest and empire have become less common in the modern age, we should be thankful for other causes of peace, such as effective balancing behavior, nuclear deterrence, and spreading liberal democracy . Third, guerrilla-based and civilian-based defenses are unlikely to work or even to be implemented against coercive and repressive conquerors. The following section describes the realist-liberal debate over the profitability of conquest, The article next explains in more detail the argument behind the liberal position, and then shows that conquest still pays, with an explanation based on the realist theory of coercion, collective goods theory, and basic observations about modernization. The concluding section explores the implications of this for international relations theory and practice. The Debate Imperial rulers and propagandists, unsurprisingly, have typically believed that conquest pays. Thucydides observed that Athenian imperialism was fueled by its demand for tribute, mines, and foreign markets.’ Indeed, the rise of all nation-states can be seen as a cycle of conquest, consolidation, and resource extraction.2But the notion that conquest pays also informs a venerable tradition of balance-of-power thinking by realist statesmen...