Armed forces

The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external and internal aggressors. In broad usage, the terms "armed forces" and "military" are often treated synonymously, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include both its military and other paramilitary forces. Armed force is the use of armed forces to achieve political objectives.

The study of the use of armed forces is called military science. Broadly speaking, this involves considering offense and defense at three "levels": strategy, operational art, and tactics. All three levels study the application of the use of force in order to achieve a desired objective.

Organization

In most countries the basis of the armed forces is the military, divided into basic military branches. However, armed forces can include other paramilitary structures.

Armed

Armed (May, 1941–1964) was an American Thoroughbred gelding race horse. He was sired by the great stakes winner Bull Lea, the sire of Citation. His dam was Armful, whose sire was Belmont Stakes winner Chance Shot and whose grandsire was the great Fair Play.

Besides being small for his age and very headstrong, Armed had the habits of biting and kicking hay out of his handler's pitchfork. Since he was also practically untrainable, his trainer, Ben A. Jones, sent him back to Calumet Farm to be gelded and turned out to grow up. He returned to the track late in his two-year-old season and resumed training.

His first start was as a three-year-old the following February, and he won at Hialeah Park by eight lengths. He won again less than a week later but then won only once in five more starts and had to be rested due to an ankle injury.

Armed raced for seven seasons, from 1944 to 1950, finishing with a 41-20-10 record in 81 starts. In 1947 under jockey Douglas Dodson, he defeated U.S. Triple Crown champion Assault in a match race at Belmont Park and set a track record of 2:01-3/5 for one and one-quarter miles while winning the Widener Handicap and carrying 129 pounds. He repeated as American Champion Older Male Horse and was voted 1947 American Horse of the Year honors. In the Horse of the Year poll conducted by Turf and Sport Digest magazine, he received 151 of a possible 173 votes to win the title from Citation, Stymie, Bewitch and Assault. Armed died in 1964 of an intestinal tumor. In 1963, he was inducted into National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. In The Blood-Horse ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, he was ranked #39.

Swedish Armed Forces

The Swedish Armed Forces (Swedish: Försvarsmakten) is the government agency that forms the military forces of Sweden, and which is tasked with defence of the country, as well as promoting Sweden's wider interests, supporting international peacekeeping efforts, and providing humanitarian aid.

It consists of: the Swedish Army, the Swedish Air Force and the Swedish Navy, with addition of a military reserve force, the Home Guard (Swedish: Hemvärnet). Since 1994, all the Swedish armed services are organised within a single unified government agency, headed by the Supreme Commander, even though the individual services maintain their distinct identities. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is traditionally attributed as Honorary Commander-in-Chief à la suite.

The military history of Sweden includes several unions and wars with all of its neighbour states, including extended Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War at the times of the Swedish Empire during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Wars with Russia culminated in the Finnish War (1808-1809), with Sweden permanently losing Finland. During the World Wars, the Cold War and throughout the 20th century, Sweden maintained a national policy of non-alignment, while the Swedish Armed Forces strength was based upon the concepts of conscription. In 2010, peacetime conscription was abolished, replacing it with volunteer armed forces including the Home Guard – National Security Force until 2018.

Military of Greece

The Hellenic Armed Forces are combined military forces of Greece. They consist of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff, the Hellenic Army, the Hellenic Navy, and the Hellenic Air Force.

The civilian authority for the Greek military is the Ministry of National Defense.

Conscription, budget, international operations

Greece currently has universal compulsory military service for males, under which all men above 18 years of age serve for 9 months. Women may serve in the Greek military, but cannot be conscripted. According to NATO, in 2008, Greece spent 2.8 percent of G.D.P. on its military, or about €6.9 billion, or around $9.3 billion. Greece is the largest importer of conventional weapons in Europe and its military spending is the highest in the European Union (relative to G.D.P).

Greece is an EU and NATO member country and participates in peacekeeping operations such as ISAF in Afghanistan, EUFOR in Bosnia and Chad, and KFOR in Kosovo.

Component forces and their organization

Indian Oil Corporation

Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IndianOil) is India's largest commercial enterprise headquartered in Delhi, with a sales turnover of Rs. 4,50,756 crore (US$ 73.7 billion) and profits of Rs. 5,273 crore for the year 2014-15. It is also the leading Indian corporate in Fortune's prestigious 'Global 500' listing of the world's largest corporates, ranked at the 119th position for the year 2015.

As India's flagship national oil company, with a 33,000-strong work-force currently, IndianOil has been meeting India’s energy demands for over half a century. With a corporate vision to be 'The Energy of India' and to become 'A globally admired company,' IndianOil's business interests straddle the entire hydrocarbon value-chain – from refining, pipeline transportation and marketing of petroleum products to exploration & production of crude oil & gas, marketing of natural gas and petrochemicals, besides forays into alternative energy and globalisation of downstream operations.

Having set up subsidiaries in Sri Lanka, Mauritius and the UAE, the Corporation is simultaneously scouting for new business opportunities in the energy markets of Asia and Africa. It has also formed about 20 joint ventures with reputed business partners from India and abroad to pursue diverse business interests.