**7. Conclusions**

This article o ffered a three-tier model of the involvement of religion in national security making, based on the case of Israel before and after the religionization of its environment in the late 1970s-early 1980s. This model was found to apply to France as well, which presented a type of governmental utilization of religion for national security goals absent from the Israeli case—the reorganization of religion–state relations for national security goals. A further example, the American case, provided a utilization of religion in the economic instrument absent from both the Israeli and the French cases. The model can only grow and benefit by application to other countries, where it should reveal common governmental practices absent in the Israeli, French and US cases.

If "God is in the details", then so is religion's involvement in making national security policies. The same mechanisms of religion's influence on policy exist in all countries: the way the religious demographics of the state and its religious identity inform national interests, the presumptions of political and security decisionmakers about the link between religion and security, and religion's role in shaping international, regional and domestic politics. However, their expressions completely depend on the local context. Thus, religion's involvement in national security making cannot be inferred from a single case to all others, or from one "era of religion" to another. Nor can it be divined from the current state of knowledge. The existing scholarship is, as yet, unable to answer basic questions such as: What circumstances lead states to utilize religion for security objectives? In which states do internal religious politics have a greater influence on shaping security policy? What kinds of states make the broadest use of religion to achieve security goals? Are there geographic differences in the involvement of religion in determining security policy? These topical questions can only be answered by systematic compilation and comparison of in-depth analyses of multiple case-studies along the various religious factors identified in this article.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
