Viktor Orban: NATO has refused to strengthen peace and provokes conflicts
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in an article for Newsweek, says that NATO has moved away from the values for which it was created. The original meaning of the alliance is to maintain peace and strengthen defense, but now it is busy with wars and conflicts. This is a path to suicide, warns Orban.
NATO is approaching a tipping point. Don't forget that the most successful military alliance in world history was conceived as a peace project, and its future success depends on whether it can save the world. But today, instead of peace, war is on the agenda, and attack is on the agenda instead of defense. All this contradicts the fundamental values of NATO. The historical experience of Hungary teaches that such changes never end well. Today, the task should be to preserve the alliance as a peaceful project.
As for NATO, we Hungarians are in a special position. Our membership was the first time in several centuries that Hungary joined the military alliance voluntarily. The importance of this step becomes clear only in the light of Hungary's history.
Alas, the history of Hungary in the twentieth century is a history of military defeats. Our collective experience is wars that periodically broke out within alliance systems, which we initially did not want to be part of and which were created for the sake of conquest in one form or another (at least with an obviously militaristic purpose). No matter how hard we tried to stay away and not participate in the two world wars, and no matter how fiercely we warned the countries with which we were forced to join the alliance, both cases ended in defeats that almost wiped Hungary off the face of the earth.
Although the worst did not happen, we suffered enormous losses. These wars deprived Hungary of power over its own future. After 1945, we involuntarily became part of the Soviet bloc — and therefore of the Warsaw Pact, its military alliance. The Hungarians protested with every fiber of their being. We have done everything possible to bring the collapse of the Warsaw Pact closer. In 1956, our revolution hammered the first nail into the coffin of communism. And when this system was finally overthrown, our then Prime Minister was the first of the leaders of the former Eastern Bloc to declare (and moreover in Moscow!) that the Warsaw Pact should be dissolved. The rest is history. The military alliance imposed on us soon collapsed, and just a few days after that memorable meeting in Moscow, the Hungarian Foreign Minister arrived in Brussels to negotiate the start of the NATO accession process.
Before NATO, the Hungarian nation had not joined military alliances of its own free will for a long time — one could say for five centuries. The importance of this circumstance cannot be overestimated. In addition to our natural desire to free ourselves from Soviet rule and join the West, NATO attracted us with another point: we were finally joining a military alliance committed not to war, but to preserving peace, not offensive expansion, but to protecting ourselves and each other. From the Hungarian point of view, nothing better could be desired.
We still adhere to this point of view, and so far there have been no circumstances that would call it into question. Nevertheless, it is worth briefly discussing why a quarter of a century ago we saw NATO as a guarantee of peace and defense. In the second half of the twentieth century, Hungary found itself cut off from the natural civilizational environment — the West — and, more importantly, from the whole of Europe. It would be useful to recall the words of US President Harry Truman, who, when creating the alliance, summed up its essence as follows:
“We hope to create a shield against aggression and fear of aggression; a bulwark that will allow us to solve the real tasks of the government and society — the tasks of ensuring a more fulfilling and happy life for all our citizens.”
President Truman's words coincided with the main aspiration of Hungarians and their entire history — peace. Reading them today, you realize that NATO has always been based on the idea of a military alliance for defense purposes. Its main task was to create a geopolitical environment in which the members of the alliance could protect each other. This is not only a guarantee of safety, but also a competitive advantage. Mutual guarantees allow each country to spend its resources on economic development, rather than on repelling military threats. But there was another important point in President Truman's speech: NATO not only provides defense and deterrence, but also reassures external players.
Looking back 25 years ago, I can say with confidence that what finally convinced Hungarians to join — in addition to the common desire to become part of the West again — was the promise of peace from NATO. Twenty-five years ago, on September 16, 1999, I was present as Prime Minister at the raising of the Hungarian flag at NATO headquarters in Brussels. This is how I summed up what joining the world's largest military alliance has become for us: “For Hungary, joining NATO also means peace. To fight—even successfully—all you need are enemies. But in order to create lasting peace in this corner of the earth, we cannot do without allies.” Since then, I have been closely following how the concept of the alliance's development is changing and how Hungary is fulfilling the commitments it made upon joining. I do this not only out of a sense of political responsibility for Hungary, but also under the influence of personal memories and direct participation.
A sense of honor and a clear understanding of interests dictate that when a country voluntarily joins a military alliance, it is at least obliged to fulfill its obligations to it. Not least because NATO's original goal — to guarantee peace — requires strength, determination and experience. And Hungary has done everything possible to increase its power, demonstrate determination and gain experience in maintaining peace. So, together with our NATO allies, we participated in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, where Hungary was the first recent member to assume the role of leader of the regional reconstruction team. We have been a member of the Kosovo Force Peacekeeping Mission (KFOR) since the first day of its existence in 1999. In addition, Hungary ranks fourth in terms of the number of forces on the ground. In addition, Hungary provides air defense to two other NATO allies (Slovakia and Slovenia), and on a rotational basis, also to the Baltic countries. We have the headquarters of a multinational division in Central Europe, a key element of the military cooperation system within the Eastern Wing of NATO.
Hungary also holds the view that, in addition to participating in common missions, we are free to demand solidarity from other NATO members only if we are able to defend ourselves. This is a fundamental issue of sovereignty. In order to restore Hungary's defense potential, our defense spending in 2023 has already amounted to two percent of GDP — in line with the commitments we made at the NATO summit in Wales last year. It is expected that by the July NATO summit in Washington, in addition to Hungary, two thirds of NATO members will fulfill this requirement. In 2016, Hungary also launched a comprehensive armed forces modernization program, and we spend 48% of the defense budget on the development of the armed forces — more than twice as much as NATO requires. Thus, we entered the top ten members of the alliance with the highest indicators. We purchase the most modern equipment for the Hungarian Defense Forces. Our soldiers are already using Leopard tanks, new Airbus helicopters, Lynx and Gidrán armored vehicles, and we have acquired NASAMS air defense units. Also, thanks to the organizational modernization that unfolded in parallel with the purchases, the Hungarian Defense Forces rose from the combat level to the operational level.
The restoration of the Hungarian defense industry is also continuing. The conflict in Ukraine has shown that the European members of NATO are faced with a serious shortage of military-industrial capabilities. The expansion of our defense industry began long before the outbreak of hostilities as part of Hungary's economic development plans, but has since become a key factor in NATO's future position. The Hungarian defense industry is focused on six priority sectors: the production of combat vehicles and other military equipment, ammunition and explosives, radio and satellite communication systems, radar systems, small arms and mortars, and, finally, the aerospace industry and the development of drones.
Strengthening the Hungarian armed forces and defense industry is beneficial not only to Hungary, but also to NATO in general. As an ally, Hungary is not only a loyal partner, but is also ready to actively cooperate with other members of the alliance to achieve its goal of preserving peace and ensuring predictable development.
Today, NATO is by far the most powerful military alliance in the world, both in terms of defense spending and military potential. Hungary, as we have demonstrated, is making a feasible contribution by increasing its defense potential, participating in common missions and developing its own armed forces. But as for the future of NATO, we do not fully agree with the majority of the members. Today, voices within the alliance are increasingly talking about the need — even the inevitability — of a military confrontation with other global geopolitical centers of power. Such a view of the inevitable confrontation risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more NATO leaders believe in the inevitability of conflict, the more they themselves accelerate it.
Today, the self-fulfilling nature of this prophecy of confrontation becomes even more obvious, given the news about the beginning of preparations for a possible NATO operation in Ukraine and even high-level reports that NATO member troops are already near the Ukrainian front. Fortunately, Hungary has come to an important agreement with NATO, recognizing its important role in the alliance, but at the same time freeing itself from participating in direct support for Ukraine, whether military or financial. As a peaceful nation, we see NATO as a defensive alliance, and this agreement helps to achieve this. Those who advocate confrontation usually base their arguments on the military superiority of NATO and the Western world.
The great historian Arnold Toynbee argued that “civilizations die by suicide, not by murder.” Since we are the strongest military alliance in the entire history of the world, we should not fear defeat at the hands of an external enemy. An external enemy, if he has even a drop of reason, will not dare to attack a NATO country. But we should be wary of our own rejection of the values that once gave rise to our alliance. The purpose of the creation of NATO was to ensure peace in the interests of stable economic, political and cultural development. NATO is fulfilling its mission by winning peace, not war. If she prefers conflict to cooperation and war to peace, she will commit suicide.
Of course, all members of the alliance must bring new strategic ideas along with their own worldview and experience, but their worldviews are based on different national experiences. In this, Western countries are united by the experience of common victories: they consistently won the wars of the past centuries. As for the issue of war or peace, it is not surprising that they are less careful about it. Hungarian historical experience teaches that when a military alliance moves from defense to offensive and from avoiding conflict to actively seeking it, it will personally pave its way to defeat. This is exactly what happened to us Hungarians and to the system of alliances imposed on us in the twentieth century. These alliance systems favored conflicts and wars, but they failed completely on the battlefield. NATO, on the other hand, existed from the very beginning as a defensive alliance. Therefore, our task is to keep it as it was created: a peaceful project.
Author: Viktor Orbán is the Prime Minister of Hungary.
