Orbán: The Point of NATO Is Peace, Not Endless War
Published Jul 05, 2024
NATO
is approaching a watershed moment. It is worth remembering that the
most successful military alliance in world history started as a peace
project, and its future success depends on its ability to maintain
peace. But today, instead of peace, the agenda is the pursuit of war;
instead of defense it is offense. All this runs counter to NATO's
founding values. Hungary's historical experience is that such
transformations never lead in a good direction. The task today should be
to preserve the alliance as a peace project.
On those occasions
when we need to make statements about NATO, we Hungarians are in a
special position. Our accession to NATO was the first time in several
centuries that Hungary had voluntarily joined a military alliance. The
significance of our membership only becomes clear in light of Hungary's
history.
The history of 20th-century Hungary is also,
unfortunately, a history of defeat in wars. Our collective experience is
one of wars periodically fought within alliance systems of which we did
not originally want to be a part, and which were established with some
form of conquest in mind—or at least with some explicitly militaristic
goal. However much we sought to stay out of the two world wars, and
however vehemently we tried to warn those countries we were forced into
alliances with, each occasion brought a defeat that almost erased
Hungary from the face of the Earth.
Although the worst did not
happen, our losses were still colossal. These wars left Hungary with no
control over its future. After 1945 we became an unwilling part of the
Soviet bloc, and thus also of the Warsaw Pact: the then Eastern bloc's
military alliance. Hungarians protested with every fiber of our being.
We did our utmost to bring about the downfall of the Warsaw Pact. In
1956 our revolution drove the first nail into the coffin of communism;
and, as that system was finally being overthrown, our then-prime
minister was the first leader in the former Eastern bloc to declare (in
Moscow!) that the Warsaw Pact must be dissolved. The rest is history.
The military alliance that had been imposed on us almost immediately
broke up, and just a few days after that famous meeting in Moscow the
Hungarian foreign minister was in Brussels, negotiating the commencement
of our NATO accession process.
When the Hungarian nation joined
NATO it had not been a voluntary member of a military alliance for a
long time—perhaps as long as five hundred years. The importance of this
circumstance cannot be overemphasised. In addition to our natural desire
to free ourselves from Soviet domination and to join the West, a
special factor made NATO attractive to us: we were finally joining a
military alliance that was committed not to waging war but to keeping
the peace, not to offensive expansion but to the defense of ourselves
and one another. From a Hungarian perspective we could not have wished
for anything better.
We still hold this view, and up until now
there has never been a circumstance that has called it into question.
Yet it is worth briefly touching on why, 25 years ago, we saw in NATO
our guarantee of peace and defense. In the second half of the 20th
century Hungary was cut off from its natural civilizational
environment—the West—and, more immediately, from the whole of Europe. We
would do well to recall the words of U.S. President Harry S. Truman,
who, upon the founding of the alliance, summed up its essence in the
following words:
In this pact, we hope
to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression—a
bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of
government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier
life for all our citizens.
President Truman's words
coincided with the aspirations of Hungarian history: peace. Reading them
today, it is clear that the concept underpinning NATO was emphatically
that of a military alliance for defense. Its primary task was to create a
geopolitical environment in which the members of the alliance would
mutually defend one another. This is not only a security guarantee, but
also a competitive advantage. Mutual guarantees enable each member
country to direct its resources to economic development rather than to
warding off military threats. But there was another important element in
President Truman's speech: NATO provides not only defense and
deterrence, but also reassures external actors.
Looking back 25
years, I can confidently say that what finally convinced Hungarians to
join—alongside a general desire for integration as part of the West—was
NATO's promise of peace. Twenty-five years ago, on September 16, 1999,
as prime minister I was present when the Hungarian flag was raised at
NATO headquarters in Brussels. This is how I summed up what joining the
world's largest military alliance meant for us: "For Hungary, joining
NATO also means peace. Well, to fight a war—even successfully—all you
need are enemies; but to create lasting peace in this corner of the
world is impossible without allies." Ever since then I have been closely
following the development of the alliance's vision for the future, and
the manner in which Hungary has been fulfilling the commitments it made
when it joined. I have done so not only out of a general sense of
political responsibility for Hungary, but also as a result of my
personal memories and direct involvement.
![Viktor Orban NATO]()
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - JUNE
12: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and NATO Secretary General
Jens Soltenberg (L) attend a joint press conference on June 12, 2024 in
Budapest, Hungary. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg...
A sense of honor and a clear understanding of
its self-interest dictate that when a country voluntarily joins a
military alliance, its minimum obligation is to fulfill its commitments
to that alliance. This is not least because the original purpose of
NATO—to guarantee peace—demands strength, determination, and experience.
And Hungary has done its utmost to increase its strength, demonstrate
its determination, and gain experience in the maintenance of peace.
Thus, together with our NATO allies, we participated in the ISAF mission
in Afghanistan, where Hungary was the first from the most recent intake
of member countries to assume the national role of leader of a
provincial reconstruction team. We have been a member of KFOR, the
Kosovo peacekeeping mission, since day one in 1999, and Hungary is the
fourth-largest contributor to that mission in terms of forces on the
ground. Moreover, Hungary provides air defense for two other NATO
allies, Slovakia and Slovenia, and—on a rotational basis—for the Baltic
states. We also host the Central European Headquarters Multinational
Division Centre, a key element of the military cooperation system
forming part of NATO's Eastern Wing.
Hungary is also of the
opinion that, in addition to participating in missions, we can only
demand solidarity from other NATO member countries if we are able to
defend ourselves. This is a fundamental question of sovereignty. In
order to rebuild Hungary's defense capabilities, our defense spending in
2023 was already 2 percent of GDP, in accord with the commitments we
had made at the NATO summit in Wales the previous year. By July's NATO
summit in Washington, in addition to Hungary two-thirds of member
countries are expected to have met this requirement. In 2016 Hungary
also embarked on a comprehensive force modernization program, and we are
spending 48 percent of the defense budget on force development—more
than double the NATO requirement. This has made us one of the 10
highest-performing member countries. We are purchasing the most modern
equipment for the Hungarian Defence Forces. Our soldiers are already
using Leopard tanks, new Airbus helicopters and Lynx and Gidrán armored
vehicles, and we have acquired NASAMS air defense system units. Thanks
also to the organizational modernization that is taking place in
parallel with the acquisitions, the Hungarian Defence Forces have been
raised from the combat level to the operational level.
The
rebuilding of the Hungarian defense industry is also in progress. The
war in Ukraine has shown that European NATO member countries are facing a
serious shortfall in military industrial capacity. The development of
our defense industry had already started long before the outbreak of the
war, as part of Hungary's economic development plans, but it has since
become a key factor for NATO's future position. Hungary's defense
industry focuses on six priority sectors: the manufacture of combat and
other military vehicles, production of munitions and explosives, radio
and satellite communications systems, radar systems, small arms and
mortar production, and aerospace industry and drone development.
Strengthening
the Hungarian armed forces and defense industry benefits not only
Hungary, but NATO as a whole. Hungary is an ally that, in addition to
being a loyal partner, stands ready to actively cooperate with other
members of the alliance to achieve its goals 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 capabilities.
Hungary, as we have seen, is punching above its weight in developing its
defence capabilities, participating in missions, and developing its
military forces. But when it comes to the future of NATO, we are not in
full agreement with the majority of member countries. Today ever more
voices within NATO are making the case for the necessity—or even
inevitability—of military confrontation with the world's other
geopolitical power centers. This perception of inevitable confrontation
functions like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more that NATO's leaders
believe conflict to be inevitable, the greater will be their role in
precipitating it.
Today the self-fulfilling nature of this
confrontation prophecy is becoming increasingly apparent, with the news
that preparations have begun for a possible NATO operation in
Ukraine—and even high-level reports that troops from NATO member
countries are already near the Ukrainian front. Happily, though, Hungary
has come to an important agreement with NATO acknowledging our
essential role in the alliance while exempting us from its direct
support efforts in Ukraine, whether military or financial. As a
peace-loving nation, we understand NATO as a defensive alliance—which
this agreement helps to ensure. Those who argue in favor of
confrontation typically base their arguments on the military superiority
of NATO and the Western world.
The great historian Arnold Toynbee
argued that "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." As the
strongest military alliance the world has ever known, it is not defeat
at the hands of any external enemy that we should fear. An external
enemy, if it has any sense, will not dare to launch an attack on any
NATO member country. But we should very much fear our own rejection of
the values that gave birth to our alliance. The purpose for which NATO
was created was to secure peace in the interest of stable economic,
political, and cultural development. NATO fulfills its purpose when it
wins peace, not war. If it chooses conflict instead of cooperation, and
war instead of peace, it will be committing suicide.
Of course it
is incumbent on each member country to bring new insights to the
strategy room alongside its own worldview and experience; but these
worldviews are informed by the different experiences of various
countries. In this respect, the uniform experience of the Western
countries is one of victory—they have successively won the wars of past
centuries. When it comes to the question of war or peace, it is no
wonder they are less cautious. But the Hungarian historical experience
is that when a military alliance changes from focusing on defense to
focusing on offense, from avoiding conflict to seeking conflict, it buys
itself a ticket to defeat. This is what happened to us Hungarians with
the alliance systems forced upon us during the 20th century. Those
alliance systems favored conflict and war, and in war they failed
thoroughly. By contrast, from the very beginning NATO has existed as a
defensive alliance. Therefore our task is to preserve it as what it was
created to be: a peace project.
Viktor Orbán is Prime Minister of Hungary.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.