There was a video on the front page the other day about a guy saying that wars were simply to bully other countries for the sake of the wealthy. And I look at stuff like Vietnam, gulf war, Afghanistan and think these were nonsense, why did we even go in there? But was ww1 or ww2 different? Was there a real threat that needed to be dealt with or just another opportunity for the wealthy?
Every war is an investment. If you fight a "moral" war or any thing like that you can expect a bad investment.
In WWI Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary made investments to become more dominate in world politics. Britain was hoping to avoid being apart of the war because they were already at the head of the table. But as is the responsibility of powerful nations they must protect their weaker allies.
The US was hoping to avoid the European war but joined 3 years in which proved a smart investment. Germany had a failed investment.
WWII was Germany making a larger investment to recoup all the loses from WWI and then some. War is an investment of blood and gold and the dividends could be territory resources trading agreements or increased political power