The prime minister, assisted by the secretary-general for national defense, oversees the armed forces according to the terms of the constitution, but it is the minister of defense who actually directs the land, air, and naval forces and who, moreover, has authority over the armament policy and the arsenal.
"There are no victimless crimes," he concludes, meaning that there are huge public costs when polluters, defense contractors and the Business Roundtable control environmental policies, armament policies and tax policies by their lush campaign contributions.
His contact with extreme nationalist political circles favouring increased armament convinced him that, if policy was influenced by "strong men," a vigorous conduct of war was assured.
Fourth, we need to stop letting armament manufacturers dictate our foreign policy.
For instance, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had almost appeared like an arms dealer during the Manama Dialogue event back in December 2013, when he cited armaments as the benchmark for U.S. policy, to deny that there was a gradual U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East and the Gulf region in the direction of Asia Pacific.
In 1965, as the Second Vatican Council was modernizing the church, he unsuccessfully pushed for a change in church policy in support of nuclear armament by Western powers because, as the petition he wrote said, it "has preserved freedom for a very large portion of the world".
This caused a rift between France and West Germany, which then started to emphasize standardization with American equipment, especially in armament, and to follow the new NATO policy to use multifuel diesel engines.
After taking on the United Nations in an early-morning Facebook post, Trump turned his attention to "strengthening" U.S. nuclear armament in a tweet directly contradicting decades of nuclear nonproliferation policy and the aims of his predecessor, who sought to expand such efforts.
Asked about Georgia's reported difficulties in purchasing American armaments, Mr Saakashvili merely said there were no problems "in terms of policy".
In foreign policy, his negotiations with the British over reduction of naval armaments (March 1909 and February 1912) came to nothing because of the opposition of German admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, supported by William II (Kaiser [emperor] Wilhelm II).
This is chiefly because its foreign policy is a compromise between powerful economic interests (in energy and armaments), the armed forces and the country's political leadership.
