Reading a history of the bond market recently, and the author noted that Britain defeated Napoleon mostly because their consol bond market left the British military much better funded than France’s weak post-revolutionary capital markets.

One Alexander Hamilton studied the British bond market, and then consolidated American revolutionary debt into one tradable market, which gave birth to what became the New York stock exchange, Liberty bonds, and the world’s largest capital markets.

An army might march on its stomach, but it’s borrowed money that pays for the food and ammunition, and the one who can borrow the most generally wins.