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Arming NATO's partners (1)

01 January 1991

Arming NATO's partners
artdoc March=1995

The United States and other NATO members are planning major arms
transfers to selected Central and Eastern European countries -
Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This
development is being implicitly encouraged by the terms set out
in NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) and a new US law - the NATO
Participation Act - signed by President Clinton in November. This
Act, which is intended to `assist the transition to full NATO
membership', links PfP and arms transfers. The four countries are
recognised under the Act for the transfer of excess defence
equipment and aid under the Foreign Military Financing Programme.
These `Partners' have already begun upgrading their existing
equipment to meet the standards of Western technology especially
in the areas of electronics and communications. The Pentagon has
announced that excess F-16 aircraft are available for transfer
to Poland; the Czech Republic has asked Belgium for 24 F-16's and
is seeking US help to upgrade the army's T-72 tanks; in September
the US Air Force delivered an identification `friend-or-foe'
system to Hungary.
One effect of these arms transfers will be to encourage an
increase in arms exports from the four countries to finance the
modernisation of their military forces - the Czech Republic is
planning to export recently decommissioned MIG-29 fighter planes.

BASIC Papers no 6, December 1994; AMOK, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Statewatch, Vol 4 no 6, November-December 1994