Militaries are the most powerful entities on the planet. A man holding a bag of cash vs. a man holding a gun. The man holding the gun always wins.
> In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?
> "The king, the priest, the rich man — who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It's a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.
> "And yet he is no one," Varys said. "He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel."
> "That piece of steel is the power of life and death."
> "Just so … yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?"
> "Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords."
> "Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they? Whence came their swords? Why do they obey?" Varys smiled.
- A Clash of Kings - Tyrion II
https://acoup.blog/tag/game-of-thrones/
There is a reason why we distinguish between force and power. People generally perform better in societies where they aren't constantly threatened into obedience.
GRRM's world is a lot more cynical and obsessed with raw force than our own historical record.
These should be the first words out of any teacher's mouth in any course in history or civics. It would clear up a lot of confusion built into the vague notions of 'progress'.
Look what happens if you don’t pay your taxes (which is a way to enforce usage of a currency), you’ll be arrested and will go to jail.
And if you think about how the US dollar remained a global reserve currency through the petrodollar (explicitly backed by the US military protecting Saudi Arabia’s oil fields in return to its oil be exclusively sold with dollars), then it’s apparent that guns are what makes the money go round.
Money is the substrate of virtually all of society beyond a handful of your peers. If you utterly destroyed it, society would collapse.
If you’re still curious, read Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5000 years” which delves into the Roman monetary system in detail.
Who were Napoleon's financiers? Hitler's? UK during WW2?
It's generally the case that the politicians control the Armies during peacetime, but historically, money is the big limiting factor so banks have incredible power.