Even minor states and NGOs these days exist on a scale that dwarfs anything premodern. Syria, an impoverished shithole even before the civil war, had a population of 23 million, a GDP PPP of $110 billion ($67 billion at MER), and an army that, including reservists, was 600,000 strong. Each of the five major factions there were regularly fighting battles that dwarfed the largest medieval ones, with more followers both civilian and military than practically any medieval ruler, and capturing provinces whose economic output dwarfed any medieval kingdom's.