The U.S. State Department has approved a government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) request by Thailand for 60 Stryker infantry carrier vehicles (ICVs). The necessary certification of the proposed sale was delivered to Congress by the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on July 26. The DSCA noted that the procurement – including equipment such as M2 Flex .50-caliber machine guns and spare parts – comes with an estimated price tag of $175 million.

The Royal Thai Army is in the midst of revamping its armored infantry-carrying vehicle inventory. The Army aims to phase out all of its aging M113 and Textron LAV-150 armored personnel carriers in the near future and has eyed the M1126 Stryker 8×8 ICV as an alternative. The bid for the General Dynamics Land Systems Stryker would sustain the pipeline of U.S.-sourced military vehicles to the Royal Thai Army at a time when the service has begun absorbing Chinese-based armored vehicle and tank solutions such as the VN-1 8×8 wheeled APCs from China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) and the VT-4 (export version of China’s MBT3000) based on the Soviet-legacy T-72 tank design.