Russia-Ukraine crisis, all business for US military companies in Poland
The State Department has approved an estimated $ 6 billion sale of General Dynamics M1 Abrams tanks and other equipment to Poland. The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
It's hard to deny that the current escalation between Russia and Ukraine is making the American military industry do business.
A demonstration? The State Department has approved an estimated $ 6 billion sale of M1 Abrams tanks and other equipment to Poland as tensions on Europe's eastern flank remain high over Russian aggression targeting Ukraine.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency on Friday notified Congress of the potential sale.
Poland has requested the purchase of 250 M1A2SEPv3 Abrams tanks manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems, 250 Duke CREW Duke IED explosive systems, 26 M88A2 HERCULES Combat Recovery vehicles and 17 joint M1110 assault bridges.
Poland also plans to purchase as part of the agreement 276 .50-caliber M2 machine guns, 500 M240C 7.62-mm machine guns and other equipment and parts necessary to operate the weapon systems.
Other contractors involved in the sale are BAE Systems, Leonardo DRS, Honeywell, Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin.
Last month, Republicans in Congress pushed to speed up the Abrams tank sale proposal, which had been pending since last summer, in light of the escalating crisis with Russia.
After meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in October 2021, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said Austin thought that “equipping the Polish army with Abrams tanks was absolutely justified as it builds interoperability between American forces. and Polish ".
Poland, whose brigades are currently equipped with Leopard 2A4 and Leopard 2A5 tanks, is looking to replace the Soviet -designed T-72 and PT-91 tanks, to counteract the more modern Russian T-14 Armata tanks.
In a conflict, Poland is unlikely to deploy its heavy forces in Ukraine or Belarus, but improving Poland's ability to defend itself could mitigate a potential avenue of attack for Russia. And those maneuverable and protected forces would have a better chance of resisting Russian artillery.
Poland has acquired or planned to purchase a number of American weapon systems in recent years, including the Raytheon-made Patriot air and missile defense system along with the integrated battle command system developed by Northrop Grumman. From this point of view, the foreign policy put in place by Biden in relation to Poland is in perfect continuity with that of Trump.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/crisi-russia-ucraina-tutti-gli-affari-per-le-aziende-militari-usa-in-polonia/ on Sat, 19 Feb 2022 09:42:24 +0000.