Deriving intended or unintended advantage from a main-event happening.
He wrote a letter to the editor about the Vancouver June 2011 riots in which he mentioned how things were so different in 1972 when Canada beat USSR in the Summit Series and Asian-origin refugees from Uganda's Idi Amin got admitted to Canada as a collateral benefit of the euphoria. In doing this he subtly mentioned that the item had been covered in his forthcoming book on Uganda Asians, thus deriving collateral benefit for his publication.
by vivauganda June 22, 2011
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a military act with an unintended favorable consequence
every landmine the invaders laid turned out to be duds which were eventually harvested, recycled, monetized and repurposed by the oppressed victims into arms they were able to fashion into

The area of land bombed by their adversary was host to an invasive species that threatened the livestock of the entire region providing a collateral benefit to the survivors in the aftermath.
by Hermathecles January 17, 2020
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