A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.
The NATO military alliance, by pure numbers, is stronger today than ever before. Finland and Sweden have joined the bloc in the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, defense spending is up, and leaders tout the alliance’s unity and deepening sense of purpose.
Beneath the surface, though, are significant and perhaps growing differences among member states on key issues, including how the Russia-Ukraine conflict is ultimately resolved. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country remains the only NATO member to decline to send weapons to Kyiv because it would only prolong a war neither side can win.
Domestically and in its foreign policy, the conservative government of longtime Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been an outlier in NATO and the top organizations of the European Union. Mr. Szijjarto said some of those differences reflect a hardheaded appraisal of the situation from Budapest that its allies do not share.
“We are pretty sure that Ukraine cannot win this war against Russia, as Russia is now gaining ground and pushing the front,” Mr. Szijjarto told The Washington Times’ “Threat Status” podcast in a recent interview. “But in the meantime, Russia cannot win the war against the West either. So, since none of them can win, therefore this war will be ended by negotiations for sure. The question is: When these negotiations will be started, sooner or later? And the sooner they will start, the more lives will be saved.
“We are the only NATO member state which has not been delivering weapons to Ukraine because we understand the more weapons [that] are being delivered, the longer the war will take and the more people will die,” he said. “I think efforts should be made in order to make peace and not to escalate the war.”
Mr. Szijjarto’s position aligns with the views of some fellow conservatives on this side of the Atlantic. In the U.S., some Republicans say that sending more money and aid to Ukraine without a clear pathway toward ending the war is foolish and dangerous.
U.S. intelligence chiefs, testifying at a Senate hearing Monday on global threats, provided some ammunition for Hungary’s contrarian view. They said Russia had reclaimed the initiative on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks but prospects for a breakthrough by either side were unlikely.
Mr. Orban, with Mr. Szijjarto at his side, arrived in the U.S. last week to meet with former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Mr. Szijjarto said his nation “had the best ever political relationship” with the Trump administration from 2017 through 2020.
Neither Mr. Orban nor other Hungarian officials had any formal meetings with the Biden administration, Mr. Szijjarto said. Mr. Orban made more news on his return to Budapest by predicting that Mr. Trump “will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war” if he wins a second term in November.
“Therefore, the war will end because it is obvious that Ukraine cannot stand on its own feet,” Mr. Orban said.
Internal divisions
After a long delay that angered other NATO powers, the Hungarian parliament last month voted to approve Sweden’s bid to join NATO, clearing the final roadblock to Stockholm’s accession. On Monday, the Swedish flag was raised at NATO headquarters in Brussels as it became the 32nd member of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“Sweden has taken its rightful place at NATO’s table under the shield of Article 5 protection — the ultimate guarantee of our freedom and security. All for one and one for all,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a ceremony.
It’s not clear all of the bad blood has been put to rest. Mr. Szijjarto said the Hungarian parliament blocked Sweden’s accession to NATO because Hungarian lawmakers felt personally insulted by Swedish criticism about the state of Hungary’s democracy. European Union officials in Brussels have also clashed with the Orban government and held up billions of dollars in development aid to protest the state of democracy, press freedoms and civil liberties in Hungary.
“The government has always been supportive” of Sweden joining NATO, the foreign minister told The Times. “The reason why the parliamentarians decided not to put this issue on the agenda for a long period of time was they felt … insulted by the Swedish politicians who have constantly, really constantly, criticized, accused and attacked Hungary, challenging the democratic nature of our parliament and our political system.”
Among other points of contention between Hungary and NATO, Mr. Szijjarto said his government does not back the candidacy of Dutch center-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte to be the next NATO secretary-general. In 2021, Mr. Rutte said his goal was to “bring Hungary to its knees” over a law that critics cast as anti-LGBTQ.
“It’s obvious we cannot support the election of Prime Minister Rutte given the fact he was very unfair toward Hungary,” Mr. Szijjarto said.
Another point of contention centers on when and how Ukraine should be welcomed into the alliance, if at all.
Some analysts say opinions on those critical questions differ across Europe.
“It’s mixed. The three Baltic nations, Poland, Romania, I think those nations who came out of the Warsaw Pact … those nations who know Russia and are on the front lines want very much for Ukraine to come into NATO,” said Jim Townsend, deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy during the Obama administration.
“They don’t want Ukraine to lose because they will be next” in line for a Russian attack, he said during an appearance on the March 11 episode of the “Threat Status” podcast.
“But the further south you go, and the further southeast you go, Ukraine and the war there and Ukraine membership isn’t as quite on top of the agenda as it is the closer you get to Russia,” Mr. Townsend said. “Those nations feel there is still work that Ukraine needs to do, with corruption, with governance, other things. … There’s a lot of work both within the European Union and within NATO. Bringing in Ukraine with all of its, certainly its [military] capabilities, but also its issues, is something you don’t do overnight.”
The full podcast interview can be heard here at https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/11/threat-status-pivotal-moment-europe-and-stunning-g/
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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