@comb
there are two countries which are key for US in Eastern Europe, Poland and Romania.
You can bet that along with Poland the Baltics are way more important than Romania, they are right on the Russian border. And no, for America the EU-Russian relations are not the most important thing, we just want to make sure we can sell our excess energy supplies in Europe, for two reasons: 1. it makes money 2. it undercuts the Russians (both financially and politically.)
Greece is also becoming interesting for US after Erdogan's pirouettes in politics. Weapons acquired by Romania are really good and are good deterrence even for Russians and Hungary (which is supposed to be an ally, remember?) does not have similar systems. 2 Patriots batteries out of 7 can pretty much close the Western border and Himars/Larom can out range anything you can field.
Fuck Greece and fuck Turkey, to put it mildly - the last thing we want is mired in another overseas mess we have nothing to do with.
Turkey's slide into authoritarianism obviously not a good thing but we had a lot of
caudillos with a lot more awful track record around here, and we stood by them for decades (Stroessner, Pinochet, Somoza, Videla, Fujimori just to quickly name a few.) As long as Erdogan stays within the NATO we will deal with him and won't cut the cord. As I wrote earlier, Romania's stock is going up as Turkey gets more screwed up but Romania can never replace Turkey in our American calculations - you are far too small and broke for that, sorry.
Romanian enthusiasm for Patriot is cute but it's really nonsensical. What on Earth is "closing border" with Patriots?
That's just downright clueless nonsense, sorry.
It's a specialized missile defense system, nothing more. You don't close a ground-level border with an ABM system.
Also, FYI the last thing anyone is afraid of in Europe is Russian ballistic missiles raining down on them - you should really stop drinking the the Kool-Aid our guys at the Pentagon are keep mixing for you.
Same thing for HIMARS: it's an MLRS, nothing more... what are you going to "outrange" (sic!) when a heavy Russian division (T-72/T-90) are rolling across the Focsani Gate from Ukrainian territory and turn West to Bucuresti...? You can cause damage but sure as hell you won't stop them without hundreds of tanks and ATGM forces.
It would require about 1/3 of Romanian Army to keep the Western border secure, without moving any units from Eastern border unless we'd want to visit Budapest again, which is highly unlikely and undesired, especially if Orban Viktor meets his political end soon and his revisionist-horthyst politics are stopped.
I mean, maybe in 10 years Hungarian Armed Forces would be a strong foe. Even if you signed those deals with Lynx/Leopards, it would take at least 5 years to acquire them and lot more to actually train an army. Mind, in last 15 years almost all Romanian battalions were rotated in Iraq and Afghanistan which means much better direct warzone experience than an army who was simply overlooked by its government in last 30 years (like Hungarian army). Meanwhile, Romania is already making operational its newly acquired equipment so even if the equipment was neglected for 30 years, same as Hungary, they're some steps ahead and it's no coincidence that first gear acquired is one that Hungary does not have means to retaliate (Himars+Patriot). And there is more to come of course like a second F-16 squadron (now we can upgrade them locally), V/SHORAD systems (probably NASAMS or MICA), arty, drones etc., this was just the beginning of the program to modernized Romanian Armed Forces.
Pleahhhse.
We all know your tanks and IFVs fallen into disrepair long time ago and aside of your recent purchases your equipment is generally in a sorry-ass condition. You have a total of what, 200-250 T-84s and another 100-150 BMP-1s, and couple hundred outdated, 50+ years old APCs, a fraction of them with ATGM?
As far as I know pretty much that's your somewhat operational heavy inventory (and your new Piranhas are just started to arrive and there are only a few dozen of them.)
Now I'd wager my paycheck that less than a third of them are actually in deployable condition, probably about 80-100 tanks total and I am not sure if all would be even up to basic NATO standards (forget having even a remote chance against modern German or Russian tanks.) So you are saying one-third of it should be enough to secure your entire Western border, like 30x T84M1? Well, fine by me or the Hungarians...
My approach would been different: buy naval assets instead of the Patriots, modern tanks and IFVs and try to get on better terms with your Western and Southern neighbors (you can still buy AMRAAMS and more F16s if you are really into kissing our asses in DC.)
You can rotate as many battalions as you want but if you completely lack the logistics and the entire system behind them you were relying on in Iraq and Afghanistan, provided mostly by our army (US Army) and our contractors, you will never be able to perform the same way and the experience quickly disappears.