The policy of the Orban government requires decisions to be made to maintain the effectiveness and unity of NATO, as well as preventing a further split in the integrity of the European Union.
In an interview with Germany’s Die Weltwoche, the Hungarian prime minister announced the need to create a European alternative to a collective security treaty without the participation of the United States. Hungary has not yet to ratify the applications of Finland and Sweden to join the transatlantic defense alliance more than eight months after NATO leaders signed off on their membership bid at a summit in Madrid. Máté Kocsis, head of Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party caucus in parliament, said last week that a “serious debate” had now emerged over the accession of the two countries. Máté Kocsis, head of Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party caucus in parliament, said that a “serious debate” had now emerged over the accession of the two countries. Orban pointed to Finland and Sweden’s previous criticism of Hungary’s record on rule-of-law issues, asserting that some in his party are questioning the wisdom of admitting countries that are “spreading blatant lies about Hungary, about the rule of law in Hungary, about democracy, about life here.”
According to Orban, Europe is losing its identity “in emotional and intellectual terms.” He stated that he would not want Russia to be defeated in Ukraine, as this would lead to a larger-scale crisis. Orban ignores the obvious fact that it’s precisely the collapse of the Soviet Union that allowed Budapest to become a member of the EU and NATO. However, these formal achievements on the part of Hungary never prompted the Hungarian authorities to observe the principles of democracy and European values. Orban’s initiative was widely covered in Russia in a positive light. The weakening of NATO and the U.S. role in the Euro-Atlantic security system has been on Moscow’s top agenda since the Cold War era.
Orban made his statement against the backdrop of Bucharest sabotaging new Russia sanctions, as well Romania protesting the statements made by the head of the Hungarian parliamentary committee on foreign affairs claiming the right of the Hungarian minority to fly their flag on Romanian soil.
Hungary is drifting further and further towards Russia and borrowing the Kremlin’s imperial political ambitions, integrating them into its foreign policy. Orban’s policies are a growing threat to the region.
On September 15, 2022, the European Parliament voted in favor of the interim report, calling on the EU Council to determine whether there was a real risk of Hungary seriously violating the values on which the EU is based under Article 7 of the Treaty.
Similar concerns are raised by Hungary’s position within NATO.
Budapest is obviously trying to destabilize the organization. Hungary’s military potential is too negligible to claim leadership in creating a European armed force alternative to NATO. Reducing the role of the United States in the collective defense organization would also bring no dividends to Budapest, thus being a seemingly aimless endeavor. Thus, the only explanation for such initiatives is the effort to promote Russia’s narratives in Europe to seal Moscow’s assistance for Budapest in the political and financial plane, as well as securing support in the UN Security Council. This looks more realistic, both in terms of Hungary blocking the adoption of packages of Russia sanctions, snubbing military assistance to Ukraine, and weakening NATO’s role in Europe.
Attempts to create a unified armed force in Europe have been made before, but none of them saw any success. The first project was implemented in 1948 in the form of the Western European Union. The organization that existed from 1948 to 2011 was tasked with ensuring cooperation in the field of security and provided for collective defense. However, its potential turned out to be insufficient due to the weak nuclear component, which ultimately led to the need to create NATO.
In 1992, Eurocorps was created, which consisted of nine states. In reality, however, these formations never actually deployed in full force, existing only on paper.
Since the mid-1990s, NATO has adopted the concept of a narrow specialization of national armies. At the same time, European nations cut military spending as much as possible, shifting the entire burden of their defense needs to the United States. Criticism of the amount of defense contributions to NATO structures on the part of European countries was voiced both in the 1950s by President Eisenhower and in 2018 – by President Trump. This indicates that the issue of financing the EU armed force will be a constant subject of violations and evasions, especially in times of crisis. As a result, both each individual European army and all of them combined lost capabilities to sustain large-scale military operations without U.S. support.
The events in the Balkans, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Ukraine exposed massive flaws of the European security system and its inefficiency due to political differences, thus confirming the leading role played by the United States.
In 2003, about 20 military missions outside Europe were set up based on the EU-27. Such joint operations were often not subordinated to a common plan or strategy at the EU level, while efforts toward their implementation were generally dispersed. Due to the lack of EU funds to co-finance such missions, the determining role was played by a country whose costs for conducting a particular operation are larger.
Britain and France attempted to create a Joint Expeditionary Force and agreed to jointly use their aircraft carriers. However, without the U.S. participation, the project proved to be a failure.
The creation of an effective European armed force requires Europe to intercept U.S. leadership of NATO’s staff bodies, which is seen as impossible. Another scenario is to generally dismantle NATO and replace it with an EU staff organization. Such a model implying zero U.S. participation would gain no confidence on the part of the Baltic States, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which understand that the possibility of reaching agreements with sources of military threats in Europe (Russia and China) for some countries in the region and their elites would be a compromise in the issue of ensuring the sovereignty of the nations that have joined the EU after the collapse of the USSR.
The European Union has neither capacity nor resources to create a joint armed force so this project is seen as unrealistic. Given the current nature of relations within the European Union and severe contradictions between its various members and groups of members, it is impossible to expect any coordinated work on the part of the entire EU in the military sphere, especially outside the bloc.
Angela Merkel’s idea voiced 10 years ago that Europeans should take their fate into their own hands raised many questions, and one of them was about security, including military. The chancellor’s blocking of NATO’s further eastward expansion is currently being cited in the Bundestag as a factor that eventually led to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Pessimism in assessments of the prospects for the unified EU armed force is due to the technical difficulties of the functioning of multinational military units. After all, approaches to managing the economy or social policies are not always applicable to the military, especially in a situation of combat operations. The main obstacles to creating a unified European armed force lie primarily in the political plane. For example, Hungary’s approach to EU and NATO decision-making in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine points to the inevitable collapse of combat management in scenarios of their deployment in the European war theater (including in Scandinavia or the Balkans).
NATO dominance and U.S. security guarantees allow European allies to focus on addressing economic and social issues, which cannot be achieved without Washington’s participation.
The emergence of a full-fledged European army would be impossible without arming it with nuclear capabilities. However, France, as the only nuclear power in the EU, will have to give up the sovereign right to its use, which seems unrealistic at the moment.
In the event of a hypothetical replacement of NATO with a European system of collective defense, Hungary will get a window of opportunities to realize its own territorial ambitions. Readiness for such a step was observed in Romania, as well as in the transfer of military hardware toward the border with Ukraine on Day 1 of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Since the NATO Treaty does not provide for expelling an ally, Hungary’s continued membership in NATO in conditions of flirting with the Kremlin appears to pose a serious problem. According to our estimates, in light of the Orban regime’s close contacts with Moscow, it seems appropriate to cease any practices of intelligence sharing with Budapest in the framework of the Alliance. Also, decisions must be made to avoid risks when interacting with Hungary in the event of an escalation, including in other areas.
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