Notice how Croatia was able to acquire military equipment during the early 1990s Yugoslav Conflict/Bosnia War, when they were able to get MRFs and MBTs very quickly. They were able to do it within a space of just around 2 years since they badly needed to repel those Serb invaders who were conducting genocide against their people and taking away their territory. Back then they also had the help of the US contractor MPRI, who was helping them train a modern military from just scratch. So by 1993, the Croatians were able to launch a major offensive and take back many of their territories that had been occupied by the Serbs;
this was a military that went from a small militia of a few thousand men with just rifles and machine guns to a well-equipped, professional military that was able to fight the once-feared Serb Army/JNA to a standstill. But the US was only helping Croatia back then with those contractors mainly because they feared an expansionist Serbia who had Russia as its main ally.
Yet the Croatians did not just rely exclusively on the US for help.
Croatian Defense Minister Gojko Susak (a Canadian citizen) also had cultivated contacts with the German government and was able to arrange to have massive amounts of ex-East German military equipment like MiG21s and T72 MBTs shipped down the Danube River to Croatian territory.Read any history of the Yugoslav/Bosnia conflict that focuses on the Croatia portion of the war, such as Carol Off's
Ghosts of the Medak Pocket (an account from a unit of Canadian UN Peacekeepers who fought against some Croatian units, in order to protect some Serb civilians), and it will confirm what I just said above.
Just some food for thought.
This post has been edited by MSantor on Jul 9 2009, 07:40 AM