A Question of Procurement: A Fishy Introduction

As parvusimperator has his Borgundy, so I do I too have my own little fake country for questions of procurement and geopolitics. Luchtburg, named after an old NationStates country named after a setting for a story I have yet to write, is a Central American Prussian successor state1.

Geographically, it’s a small country north of the Panamanian isthmus, about two hundred fifty kilometers from end to end, with both Atlantic and Pacific coastlines. The terrain is mountainous and heavily jungled, and population is centered on the coastlines. Transport links between the coastlines are limited; with Panama being a near neighbor, the difficulty of improving rail links over the mountains hasn’t been all that important since the canal opened. Several highways cross the mountains.

Economically, Luchtburg is high-tech services and finances and as such quite wealthy. Local heavy industry is limited to shipbuilding, so outside of naval buys and small arms, Luchtburg is a major defense importer.

Strategically, Luchtburg has two main geopolitical concerns. First, it desires to counterbalance regional powers such as Brazil2. In pursuit of this goal, it needs conventional armed forces capabilities superior to theirs. Second, it desires to participate in stability maintenance operations in regions where it has trading partners, primarily Europe and Asia, and as such it needs a robust amphibious, naval, and naval air capability. Although it is wealthy, it isn’t a large enough economy to spend willy-nilly, so ideally, defense systems it acquires should be able to be used in pursuit of more than one strategic aim.

That’s about all you need to know for now. The first which-is-it-gonna-be article from me will be on fighter aircraft.

1. We never claimed this game was at all plausible.
2. Brazil! *fistshake*

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