Military Governments Military governments have been around since the days of feudalism. It is the oldest and most common political state. According to Shively, a military government is one in which a group of officers use their troops to take over the governmental apparatus and run it themselves. Military governments are usually weak in appeasing the masses for they are known to be brutal and power hungry and are also rather fragile, both internally and externally. In its primitive state, existing as feudalism, the high ranking officials/nobility and the military itself was composed solely of the elite ruling class. But as society became more complex,