Customer Reviews

Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this book, the author examines the question of whether or not a nation can make economic gains by occupying another industrialized nation. Along the way, he examines five different cases: Nazi-occupied Western Europe (1940-44), Imperial German-occupied Belgium and Luxembourg (1914-18), the French-occupied Ruhr-Rhineland (1923-24), the Japanese Empire (1910-45), and the Soviet Empire (1945-89). His conclusion is that, through the use of coercion, occupying countries can indeed mobilize the occupied country's economy and draw economic benefits, outweighing the economic costs of financing the occupation.

As the previous reviewer stated, this book is limited, in that it is a mere cost-benefit analysis. However, within its limited scope, it is an excellent, in-depth analysis. The author includes a great deal of facts and figures to substantiate his conclusions. So, I do highly recommend this book.

Liberman attempts to uncover if the primordial urge of conquest is rational according to an economic cost-benefit analysis. His 5 case studies are certainly interesting and the data represented is worth reviewing. However, he fails, except maybe in the cases of the Soviets and Japanese, to answer the question: is conquest was worth the costs. The question he really answers is can an invading army successful mobilize the resources of the conquered state to which he answers yes. This does not, however, mean that conquest pays especially if one views the factors he considers at the beginning of the book (ie. the effects of lost trade, the cost of producing a military capable of invasion, and the costs of provoking adversaries.) This book is a serious start into this inquiry, but 5 carefully choosen case studies coupled with the failure of a complete analysis clearly does not justify the conclusions he attempts to make.

The future stages of confrontation will be far to turn around ideologies, but well thought strategies; in this sense, the impressive technology innovations have challenged and even modified the biorhythm of the politics.

As a matter of fact, I still remember the irreverently clever words of Jay Leno concerning the throw of Windows 95, when he stated: "the friendship ambiance of this new tool is so easy to be handled that even the most powerful man on earth, like the President of USA can do it." Laughs apart, the fact still persists, the gap between science and technology and the accustomed way of act and react of the politics is increasing in such magnitude, that not only is generating by itself an evident withdrawal specially by the creators minorities in the sense that the new problems aroused due this handicap may be close to be solved.

With the rise and fall of Nazi, Japanese and Soviet empires, the author admits the costs are low and the benefits are potentially large. The strategic significance and its multiple implications are not only food for thought but opens a new gate to expand our quotidian perspectives around the new order into the international system.