The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is creating a "huge military" state!
The fallout from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is triggering an active arms race across Europe.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), European countries spent 552 billion euros on their military last year, up 60 percent from 330 billion euros in 2014, a 16 percent increase.
Among these countries, Poland's military spending has increased the most, and while Poland's military spending is not the largest, its rate of increase is unmatched. Poland's military budget has doubled in a few years, not including its military purchases.
As the country that directly felt the impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Poland suffered the most in military terms. Of course, this influence is also deliberately amplified by the ruling party, because maximizing the Russian threat is in the interests of both NATO and the United States.
With the exception of Ukraine, Poland has become an ideal hypothesis to be "hurt"; In addition to the tragedy of Warsaw's history of constant partition and invasion, the reason that Russia may invade Poland has become a public opinion opportunity that Warsaw must seize to strengthen its military strength.
To achieve this goal, Warsaw formulated an unprecedented slogan: to build the Polish army into the most powerful in Europe within a few years. The current government's short-term goal is to make "the Polish army the strongest in Europe."
This goal has been a huge challenge for Poland, which has been hovering around the 20th place in the world, according to previous national military rankings, and ranks at the bottom of European countries. However, as the international situation changed, Poland saw an opportunity to overtake Britain, France, and Italy.
Poland's plan was simple and crude: to strengthen its military through massive foreign arms purchases; This method can ostensibly build a "tough" army in a short time.
Since 2020, Poland has signed orders for the purchase of various weapons for more than twice the equipment of its active forces, and Poland continues to make large-scale purchases, including:
Signed a $6 billion contract with the United States for the M1A2 main battle tank;
- Signed an $8.5 billion contract with South Korea for K2 Black Panther main battle tanks;
- Requested more than 500 Hymas multiple rocket launcher systems from the United States;
Signed a contract with South Korea for the K239 multiple rocket launcher system worth more than $6 billion;
- 486 M142 rocket systems purchased from the United States;
- Ordered more than 1,400 armored personnel carriers from domestic arms dealers at a total cost of about $10 billion;
- Signed an arms contract with the United States worth $23.8 billion, including 48 Patriot air defense systems and about 1,700 FlyEye drones.
In addition to these big purchases, Poland plans to double the size of its military to around 300,000 troops over the next five years. This would make Poland the largest land force in Europe and the largest army in Europe.
Overall, Poland's military purchases in the past two years have been epic, spending more than $100 billion, three times what it will spend in 2024.
Comentários