U.S. nearly doubles arms sales to European NATO allies in past year

Foreign Policy
December 29, 2022

Proposed U.S. arms sales to NATO almost doubled this past year as Russia’s aggression….

The United States nearly doubled the number and price tag of approved arms sales to NATO allies in 2022 compared with 2021, as alliance members scramble to stock up on high-end weapons in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In 2021, the U.S. government approved 14 possible major arms sales to NATO allies worth around $15.5 billion. In 2022, that jumped up to 24 possible major arms sales worth around $28 billion, including $1.24 billion worth of arms sales to expected future NATO member Finland, according to a Foreign Policy analysis of two years of data from the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

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Some of the approved U.S. arms sales in 2022 were years in the making, such as Germany’s plan to purchase F-35 fighter jets…