Re the european embargo, others on here are far more qualified to comment but it was during the Vietnam war and I THINK related to parts for one or more of our aircraft - it might have been the Pilatus Porter.
Could very well be true, but I never heard of this, also I really doubt that the Porter could suffer from any kind of embargo when you have the US as an ally, Fairchild builts them (with stronger engines BTW) as the "Peacemaker" pretty much negating any kind of embargo possibility.
The only real embargo that existed (and in reality only on paper) from 1 western counrty towards another was between France and Israel and that was mostly because of political problems between the 2 of them.
Understand re Germany / Poland. Why have a NATO pushed resolution if one of the major countries of NATO doesn't do anything major.
NATO is not a country, no decisions can be made solely because they decide so, it needs to be backed up by every individual state, as for GERMANY, it is nothing short of a miracle that they got involved in Afghanistan, an area outside of the original NATO zone of influence.
A quick action like the one in Libya is just out of the question for Germany.
It doesn't mean they are not comitted to NATO, same goes for POLAND.
I am not anti European, (born in the UK). Maybe it's because the DoD in Australia has made a cock up of so many purchases / builds and for such a small military, where possible, why not just buy off the shelf from our major coalition partner ?
If we spend 90% of our time operating with the US, then doesn't it make sense to operate the same or very similar equipment ? Does that have ANY weighting at all in the buying criteria ?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, maybe they do factor in commonality with the US military equipment , maybe they don't, I don't know what criteria the Australian MoD uses to determine what they buy.
Fact is that all our equipment is NATO-compatible and therefor US compatible.
Fact is also that even the US looks abroad if they consider buying new expensive weapon programs (LAKOTA, HARRIER, KC30 was a serious contender, GOSHAWK, Minimi, MaG, etc.... ) even if they directly compete with indigenous suppliers, same goes for most European countries.
I think it is in your nations best interest to look at all possible suppliers that can deliver what you need, I'm sure most of the time you'll automatically end up with US systems but opting for US weapons as a matter of policy is just an idiotic policy (pardon my french).