2024-03-13 12:04:23
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Poland has made a series of military purchases, particularly from the United States and South Korea. However, not all of them have yet materialized, due to a lack of solutions to finance them.
Certainly, Warsaw increased the level of its military spending to 4% of GDP and knew how to play with the European Peace Facility [FEP]an extra-budgetary fund of the European Union [UE]which can be used to help Member States replace their equipment of Soviet origin handed over to Ukrainian forces.
However, in view of the orders announced, all this is still far from sufficient… Also, Poland is banking on loans to finance its arms purchases. This was the case with South Korea. At least we believed so because, last December, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk affirmed that the facilities granted by Seoul to Warsaw did not exist…
“There was a problem with the Korean purchases… a significant portion of the Korean purchases had to be financed by a loan that Korea had to provide. In the end, it turned out that there was a misunderstanding… it turned out that there was no Korean loan,” he said, during a press conference.
What will happen with orders placed with the United States? In the meantime, Polish President Andrzej Duda will not leave empty-handed from Washington, where he met his American counterpart, Joe Biden, on March 12. Indeed, he obtained assurances that the Polish army would receive 96 AH-64E Guardian attack helicopters [ou Apache] as well as a loan of 2 billion dollars granted by the American administration.
In addition, his visit to the United States coincided with the publication of three advisories from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency [DSCA, chargée des exportations d’équipements militaires] to recommend that Congress accept the potential sale to Poland of 232 AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II air-to-air missiles, 745 AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles [Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles] and 821 AGM-158B-2 JASSM-ER air-to-ground cruise missiles [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles with Extended Range]with a range of between 800 and 1000 km.
The total amount of these three potential sales is estimated at $3.68 billion [219,1 millions pour les AIM-9X, 1,69 milliard pour les AIM-120C-8 et 1,77 milliard pour les JASSM-ER]. Note that the Polish Air Force already has such munitions in its inventory.
These “additional missiles will allow Poland to strengthen its defenses while increasing NATO interoperability,” argued the DSCA in its three opinions.
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