Mistaken beliefs almost always lock you into mistaken actions

Speaking of ideas which are empirically well established but vigorously contested by the Mandarin Class, let's not forget that nations do not get rich via conquest.  The reverse is almost always the case.  Conquest can make a nation, or at least the elite of that nation, temporarily wealthy (loot in the bank) but it cannot make them rich (productive.)

From Nations don't get rich by plundering other nations by Noah Smith.  The subheading is National wealth comes from ingenuity, hard work, good institutions, sound policy, political stability, and openness to foreign ideas and investment.

No matter how clear the evidence or settled the case, the idea that conquest leads to development is pretty tightly ingrained in the Mandarin Class.

This idea is a pillar of “third world” socialism and “decolonial” thinking, but it also exists on the political Right. This is, in a sense, a very natural thing to believe — imperialism is a very real feature of world history, and natural resources sometimes do get looted. So this isn’t a straw man; it’s a common misconception that needs debunking. And it’s important to debunk it, because only when we understand how nations actually do get rich can we Americans make sure we take the necessary steps to make sure our nation stays rich. (There actually are some more sophisticated academic ideas along similar lines, and I’ll talk about those in a bit.)

He then musters some of the evidence demonstrating that conquest is on its own never a path to sustained wealth no matter how passionately some believe that to be the case.

Sustained wealth is a function of a the right mix of knowledge, experience, skills, values, behaviors, motivations, and capabilities.  Or, in Smith's terminology, ingenuity, hard work, good institutions, sound policy, political stability, and openness to foreign ideas and investment.