The Fourth Branch of the US Government:

The United States government has three branches: the Executive (Office of the President), the Legislative (Congress), and the Judicial (Supreme Court and Federal Courts). Built into this system are checks and balances which are designed to ensure that no branch can have unilateral control over the government.

There is a fascinating paper written by Ling S. Chen of Johns Hopkins University and Miles M. Evers of the University of Connecticut. Entitled "'Wars without Gun Smoke': Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft", it talks about how modern wars between superpowers are fought with economic statecraft instead of traditional weapons. It also discusses how corporations headquartered out of a country can interfere with that country's economic maneuvering.

That brought up an interesting point for me, when a company disagrees with their country's decision they have the option to refuse to comply with any orders they're given. Of course, this would likely lead to punishments reaching the company's dismantling, but if enough companies have the same thinking, disbanding these companies would lead to a weakness in the economic system. Also, companies (especially in the US) often own the technical advantage that the US in known for, and losing these companies mean losing a vital technical advantage held over enemies. In addition, if enough companies find it important enough to put morals over profit, they likely have the support of a large portion of the population, and the government is operating against the wishes of the public. Theoretically, though this means that corporate America acts as a sort of fourth branch of government.

I'm not sure where I was going with this, but I think it's an interesting thought.