The Globalization of Production and the Changing Benefits of Conquest STEPHEN G.BROOKS Department of Political Science Yale University This article examines the conditions under which conquest is likely to reap significant economic rewards.Scholars have largely focused on how the level of popular resistance within the vanquished country influences the benefits of conquest.What needs to be scrutinized in greater depth is how post-World War II economic transformations within the most advanced countries affect the benefits of conquest.This article focuses on examining one particular economic change that has been neglected for the most part in the secu- rity and peace literature:the globalization of production.The article delineates four recent changes in the structure of global production and outlines how each of these economic transformations alters the benefits of conquest.The collective impact of the arguments strongly indicates that the benefits of conquest have declined significantly in recent years within the most economically advanced countries. The promise of capturingmbenefits from nqred territory historically has been a significant motivating force for war.Unfortunately,wars of conquest still occur,as Irag's recent invasion of Kuwait amply demonstrates.Yet,the conditions under which conquest can produce significant economic gains have not received much sustained analysis in recent years.There are a number of reasons for this neglect.The key reason likely is the widespread assumption that conquering a highly advanced state no longer can produce meaningful economic benefits due to high levels of mod- ern nationalism.In this"quagmire"perspective,conquering a highly advanced state is seen as producing few economic gains because it is assumed that the conqueror inevi- tably will have to devote great resources to suppressing nationalist uprisings and,in turn,that the defeated populace will actively seek to reduce the economic surplus available to the invader. In his recent provocative book,Does Conquest Pay?,Liberman (1996)directly challenges this conventional quagmire perspective and argues forcefully that it is inac- curate.Liberman's conclusion is that the conquest of modern societies still can pay so long as the conqueror is ruthless.Moreover,he asserts that economic modernization AUTHOR'S NOTE:This article is based on work supported by graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Institute for the Study of World Politics.I thank David Bach,Jon DiCicco, Daniel Markey,Geoffrey Garrett,Susan Rose-Ackerman,Allan Stam,Bradford Westerfield,William Wohlforth,the members of Yale University's International Relations Reading Group,and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION,Vol.43 No.5,October 1999 646-670 1999 Sage Publications,Inc. 646The Globalization of Production and the Changing Benefits of Conquest STEPHEN G. BROOKS Department of Political Science Yale University This article examines the conditions under which conquest is likely to reap significant economic rewards. Scholars have largely focused on how the level of popular resistance within the vanquished country influences the benefits of conquest. What needs to be scrutinized in greater depth is how post-World War II economic transformations within the most advanced countries affect the benefits of conquest. This article focuses on examining one particular economic change that has been neglected for the most part in the secu￾rity and peace literature: the globalization of production. The article delineates four recent changes in the structure of global production and outlines how each of these economic transformations alters the benefits of conquest. The collective impact of the arguments strongly indicates that the benefits of conquest have declined significantly in recent years within the most economically advanced countries. The promise of capturing economic benefits from conquered territory historically has been a significant motivating force for war. Unfortunately, wars of conquest still occur, as Iraq's recent invasion of Kuwait amply demonstrates. Yet, the conditions under which conquest can produce significant economic gains have not received much sustained analysis in recent years. There are a number of reasons for this neglect. The key reason likely is the widespread assumption that conquering a highly advanced state no longer can produce meaningful economic benefits due to high levels of mod￾ern nationalism. In this "quagmire" perspective, conquering a highly advanced state is seen as producing few economic gains because it is assumed that the conqueror inevi￾tably will have to devote great resources to suppressing nationalist uprisings and, in turn, that the defeated populace will actively seek to reduce the economic surplus available to the invader. In his recent provocative book, Does Conquest Pay?, Liberman (1996) directly challenges this conventional quagmire perspective and argues forcefully that it is inac￾curate. Liberman's conclusion is that the conquest of modern societies still can pay so long as the conqueror is ruthless. Moreover, he asserts that economic modernization AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article is based on work supported by graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the Institute for the Study of World Politics. I thank David Bach, Jon DiCicco, Daniel Markey, Geoffrey Garrett, Susan Rose-Ackerman, Allan Stam, Bradford Westerfield, William Wohlforth, the members of Yale University's International Relations Reading Group, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Vol. 43 No. 5, October 1999 646-670 C 1999 Sage Publications, Inc. 646