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The concept behind Operation Barbarossa hinged on the assumption that the Red Army can be decisively defeated before the autumn rainy season - that is, in a matter of weeks. In that context, it doesn't matter much if the average Ukrainian, Cossack, Chechen, Kalmyk etc. can be won over for the National Socialist cause or not. In the Pacific, the situation was the same i.e. that the US Navy was to be defeated decisively in short order according to Japanese planning (such as it was) so that the Americans have no other option but to sue for peace, because the US population won't want to fight another big war. The sentiments of the average Vietnamese, Filipino, Malay etc. don't matter one iota in that context. (Was there even any meaningful combat in WW2 in Indochina anyway? Between the Japanese and the Allies, that is?)
And that didn't work out, so in the second phase of the war not making the decision to throw away the military and productive value of Poland, the Ukraine, etc would have been really valuable, might have made all the difference. Germany perpetually faced piss-poor productivity from its foreign nationals in armaments factories, largely because they were treated so poorly. Slave labor is less productive than free labor, especially when the slaves are pretty sure they're to-be-executed. Much of Tooze's work covers how the "armaments miracle" was the result of easing (in certain cases) the racist brutality of the Nazi slave labor system. Improve German armaments manufacturing earlier, and it could be the difference.
My understanding is that the plan was to deal a blow to the US Navy that would leave it reeling, seize as much territory as possible to push the defensive ring far from the Japanese homeland as possible, then bleed the Americans for every mile on the way back to Japan, while utilizing the resources controlled as a result of the earlier conquests to fuel the Japanese war machine.
I'll admit my argument is more shaky here, as it is quite likely that once the US got into bombing range of Japan, and certainly once the atom bomb arrived, there was no likelihood of Japanese victory. The possibility of inflicting damage on Japan itself without penetrating the entire defensive front obviates some of the value of the extended defensive ring.
Nevertheless, I'd still argue that significant Japanese resources were wasted on efforts that would not have needed to be made if they had chosen differently.
This raises some questions: when was the most recent time a conqueror seriously benefited from free labor?
My first thought was Alsace-Lorraine. But apparently the economic richness is hindsight bias; Germany originally took it on nationalist and military planning grounds. France took it back for similar reasons. I assume Hitler was eager to tap its manpower and natural resources, but I couldn’t confirm what was actually extracted. Does Wages break down how many rifles, airframes, etc. were sourced from which territories?
Anyway, I think we have to go back further. Plenty of colonization had economic motives, but I’m reluctant to count cases where the free labor was all imported. Not sure about the later colonial banana republics, either. Maybe administrations like the Raj are a better fit.
My point is that free labor is hard to get. Back when the only income was feudal dues, maybe you could reasonably expect a ceded province to improve cash flow. But that was based on the unfree nature of serfdom and the limits of human capital. Add mobility, and your free labor becomes no labor. Raise complexity, and serf labor won’t get you a new airplane.
The states which won WWII benefited from free labor because they weren’t relying on conquered territory. As soon as you start conquering, I think all the good options are off the table.
Depends how we define "Conquest."
If we count the takeover and integration of territory regardless of violence, we'd be talking about Hong Kong going back to China, right?
Before that, we have South Vietnam conquered by North Vietnam, though they would have labeled that as liberation rather than conquest, and they did not benefit solely or immediately.
The USSR did not conquer most of the Eastern Bloc in the sense of integrating them into their territory, but they had effective control over their labor and benefitted from it, though you could also quibble with "free" under Communism.
This is why I think the idea of prc violently taking Taiwan is unlikely. They can't take TSMC, within a few years tsmc would be irrelevant, if it even survived the war. They must non violently absorb Taiwan to benefit.
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At the oldest possible candidate, the Japanese conquest of Korea. There’s almost certainly Soviet examples in the late forties or early fifties, as well, I just don’t know them.
As a borderline example in the 21st century, the junta in Myanmar had been making use of forced labor in territories conquered from the rebels to produce cash resources which financed the war machine.
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Does this not apply to both theatres of the war? The "if they had just relaxed their racial hierarchy stuff a liiiiiitle bit" hypothetical doesn't bring Einstein and his "Jewish physics" back to Germany.
I wonder what the modern left attitude would have been about the atomic bombing of Bremerhaven or whereever. On the one hand, if you see everything on an oppressor-oppressed axis then it's hard to get more oppressed than "lethally irradiated". On the other hand, literal non-metaphorical Nazis.
Who are white, and therefore not going to have that hint of "Well, the USA was only willing to be that callous out of racism". Which, mind, is a take I think is stupid, but I've seen it more often than you'd think.
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