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I was having a conversation with family and friends this weekend and this question came up: "what was the last profitable war?" Of course in history there were wars that turned a profit, ones I can think of are the Dacian war and some of the Mithradatic wars. But once we get to a more recent history it is hard to think of many wars that have been profitable.

The best we could come up with as a possibility were some of the English wars in India. The last war we could say was definitely profitable would have been the 4th crusade, and that was only definitely profitable for the Venetian's.

I have been using google and wikipedia primarily for my research as I am on vacation, and have looked up pretty much all of the wars I can think of but I am sure there are some we have missed.

Also as a caveat, no minor wars, which would eliminate the wars the Dutch fought against minor island kingdoms in their "spice wars" and no wars where a belligerent doesn't fight but receives some recompense for being in the alliance. Also as far as profit, it has to be a financial profit, money, land, etc... No political profit, or other intangible things. So in other words, only short term profit. The profit refers to the regime, government, king in charge, not profitable to some people in society. The profit from the war is meant mainly in spoils, land, etc.

After World War 2.0 the assumed international consensus is often read is "no more wars —— of this kind". No aggressive wars, no territorial changes achieved by war, etc.

So, given the current conditions and prerequisites of the question: at the international "country profits", in terms of "land, spoils" etc, the examples for this should be non-existant.

But there seems to be a quite prominent exception to this:

From the 6-Day-War of 1967.

From 1618 to 1871 the Electorate and Duchy of Brandenburg-Prussia did very well for itself, thank you very much, in a long series of wars, expanding significantly on each cycle:

• Thirty Years War (1618-1648)




• War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748)




• Seven Years War (1756-1763)




• Partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795)




• French Revolutionary Wars (1790-1815)




• Austro-Prussian War (1866)




• Franco-Prussian War (1870)

Likewise the United Kingdom did well in all of the same wars that it chose to participate in over the same period, plus the War of Spanish Succession in which it acquired Gibraltar.

The United States did well for itself in a century long series of Indian Wars plus the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War, stretching from its independence into the pre-WW1 twentieth century.

France under Napoleon profited in both territory and allies from all of (mostly at the expense of Austria):

• War of the Third Coalition (1803-1806)




• War of the Fourth Coalition (1806-7)




• War of the Fifth Coalition (1809)

The Last Profitable War - by any stretch - must be at least World War Two for the U.S.

United States industry reaped immense profits from 1945 to about 1970 literally rebuilding Europe. That great boom that spawned the Baby Boomers - that was all the result of the U.S. (and Canada to an extent) rebuilding Europe.

Question:

When was the last profitable war?

I would say all wars are profitable for somebody. The second gulf war has been estimated by both the chief economist of the world bank (a nobel prize winning economist) and a Harvard Economy Professor to cost 3 trillion dollars by when it's all said and done back in 2008. A lot of people walked away from that war with a lot of cheddar.

Financial cost of the Iraq War

Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, have stated the total costs of the Iraq War on the US economy will be three trillion dollars in a moderate scenario, described in their book The Three Trillion Dollar War and possibly more in a study published in March 2008

But if you are looking for a war which actually turned a profit. Then the first Gulf War came pretty close.

Gulf War Fast Facts

The US Department of Defense has estimated the incremental costs of the Gulf War at $61 billion, with US allies providing about $54 billion of that -- Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states covered $36 billion. Germany and Japan covered $16 billion.