Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/The fact that the army spends the greater part of military budget on housing and uniforms results in lack of funds for modernizing armaments and increasing the number of military equipment. Polish politicians and military men see a chance of increasing safety of our country in joining NATO. However, as the former Minister of Defense Piotr Kolodziejczyk stated (in widely quoted words), "We cannot enter NATO barefooted." Majority of Polish army's equipment is obsolete and, as such, does not need NATO's standards. The obvious solution seems to be buying modern material. However, production of majority of armaments in Poland is based on obsolete technologies, and Polish army cannot afford foreign equipment. In fact, it even has difficulties in purchasing those Polish products which actually gained acceptance of NATO; for example, the army can afford buying 10 tanks a year. Without doubt, such imperfections of the armament system does not increase the safety of Polish citizens.