I guess that depends on how far you want to take causality. As in, do you want to attribute the Manhattan Project solely to the participants' endeavours or go further and attribute them to the aggressions of Hitler?

I'll certainly agree that many technological changes owe their origins to war. Rocketry is a prime example. Another is the steam engine. The ability to make pistons was a direct byproduct of the technology developed to make cannons.

War is an interesting phenomenon. By our nature, we compete. We've competed since we climbed out of the primordial ooze. Actually before.

One can view war as the ultimate means of settling accounts but even that's an incomplete picture as many wars have their origins in culture and religion.

Anyway, my point isn't that greed and profit motivated ALL advancement. The people who invented the solid state transistor but companies who fund such research do so typically with a profit motive. It's that profit motive that also takes a scientific discovery and mass produces it into something people will buy.

Without that profit motive, many such advancements might otherwise be laboratory curiosities.