U.S. Will Pay Countries To Give Up Purchasing Russian And Chinese Arms

© Sputnik / Pavel Lisitsyn

Defense One: US: We’ll Pay Countries to Ditch Russian, Chinese Arms

The State Department wants to go global with a program originally aimed at ex-Warsaw Pact members.

The U.S. State Department wants to expand a little-known effort that offers countries cash to buy American-made weapons if they give up Russian-made arms.

The year-old initiative, called the European Recapitalization Incentive Program, is already helping six eastern European countries buy new helicopters or armored vehicles. Now, State Department officials are looking to take the effort global to get allies and partners to abandon not only Russian weapons, but Chinese ones too.

“The goal is to help our partners break away from the Russian supply chain [and] logistics chain that allows Russian contractors and service personnel and Russian-manufactured spare parts onto either NATO allied bases or partner military bases,” a State Department official said this week.

The effort comes at a time as military officials across the Potomac River at the Pentagon talk about great power competition between the U.S. and Russia and China.

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WNU Editor: This type of marketing and sales work. My family's real estate business in Russia does the same thing. We take-over the leases of clients on the condition that they move from their current location into our customized and newly constructed (and more expensive) premises. No one has ever said no. In regards to U.S. arms sales. The U.S. pays off the commitments that foreign countries have made in purchasing arms from Russia and China if they switch to the U.S.. In the short term this is expensive, but in the medium and long term it becomes incredibly lucrative. On a side note (and for those who are interested). I learned about this marketing/sale strategy when I read Peter C. Newman's book 'The Reichmanns", and how they built their real-estate empire in New York City in the 1970s and 80s.