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I didn't realize Boulton & Watt, a steam engine manufacturing firm founded in 1775, was a beneficiary of a war between Great Britain and Thirteen Colonies that also broke in 1775. Military-industrial complex indeed!

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The Modern MIC might be a new concept for Americans, but some of the largest and most successful European companies have a history of starting off for conducting trade but rapidly engaging in warfare and everything that comes with that (eg the East India Company, which literally collected Tax from lands larger than England at certain times in its life). Modern engineering practice could not have existed without the funding from Warring nations, and so on. The Industrial Revolutions and many of the institutions and professions that we take for granted today could not have been possible if Nations didn’t spend so much resources making war on each other. It’s sobering but a fascinating perspective of human progress.

> The Industrial Revolutions and many of the institutions and professions that we take for granted today could not have been possible if Nations didn’t spend so much resources making war on each other

Yes. For example, how the improvements in metal working and metallurgy required to make effective artillery pieces made 'precision-engineered' steam engines possible. Making a gun barrel that snugly matches the calibre of its shells gave people the ability to make pistons that fit snugly in their cylinders, without leaking steam everywhere.

Matthew Boulton was also pioneering mass production prior to making steam engines with Watt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soho_Manufactory

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