First it was Turkey, and now Hungary: two members of NATO, sworn to defend and protect each and every other NATO member country in times of peril. So what the hell has happened?

Viktor Orban. That’s what’s happened.

We’re already well acquainted with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey since 2014, and his up-and-down relationship with Vladimir Putin, which seems to swing according to the direction the wind is blowing on any given day. His rear end is firmly planted on the fence, one foot on the NATO side and the other on the Russian side, always ready to jump in what he decides is the better direction for his purposes. And because of Turkey’s strategic location between East and West, not aggravating Erdogan has become a sort of NATO board game . . . albeit one with very real, very high stakes.

But now there’s another wild card on the board: Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary. Though he’s held the office since 2010, it’s his recent outspoken stance on Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine that has brought him forward into the spotlight.

“What?!! Hungary?” you exclaim. “Didn’t you just say they’re also a member of NATO?”

Yup, I certainly did. And they’re a country that received an enormous amount of support from the United States and other Western nations as they struggled to get back on their financial and political feet after the fall of communism in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. I was there in Budapest myself, for a conference on doing business in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in the fall of 1990, when they were making great strides. But it seems as though the lessons of that era have been forgotten by Mr. Orban, as he seeks to placate Vladimir Putin by urging the West to make a “deal” with Russia totally against the interests of Ukraine.

No more Mr. Nice Guy, it seems.

As reported by Bloomberg: “The West should make a ‘deal’ with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine’s new security architecture, which shouldn’t include the return of Crimea nor membership in the NATO military alliance, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.”

Further, in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson — and as published on X (formerly known as Twitter) — Orban again said: “We should make a deal with the Russians on the new security architecture to provide security and sovereignty for Ukraine but not membership in NATO.” He feels that the return of Crimea to Ukraine is “totally unrealistic,” and that “the best chance for peace was for former US President Donald Trump to return to power and for him to end military support to Ukraine.”

All right — I am now, officially, gobsmacked!

But I shouldn’t be, considering that those words were spoken by a man who has already cut deals with Russia on energy despite existing sanctions, and has referred to Putin as a “model on which he [Orban] has built what he calls an ‘illiberal democracy’ that opposes the EU’s multi-cultural values” (as reported by Bloomberg).

Apparently, his country’s membership in the European Union means as little to him as does its NATO membership. But again, not surprising. Consider the history of the Fidesz party (Hungarian Civic Alliance), which he has led since 1993. It was formed in 1988 under the name of “Alliance of Young Democrats,” as a center-left and liberal activist movement that opposed the then ruling Marxist-Leninist government. And now it describes itself as a right-wing populist and national-conservative party . . . with a leader who thinks nothing of cozying up to a Russian president whose brutal, dictatorial regime daily becomes more reminiscent of the days of Josef Stalin himself.

*. *. *

It’s times like these that I’m even happier than usual not to have chosen politics or diplomacy as a career, because I could so easily start World War III in this type of situation. My first instinct would be to kick Orban’s butt — and Erdogan’s — right out of NATO. But, aside from the fact that the NATO Treaty* apparently does not contain a provision for outright expulsion of a member, that would strategically also be the absolutely worst thing we could do.

So I shall have to leave the politicking to the politicians, and the diplomacy to the diplomats. And pray that they know what the hell they’re doing.

Just sayin’ . . .

* Interestingly, the NATO Treaty was first drafted by a team headed by my late boss, Walter Sterling Surrey, in 1949, when he was an attorney with the U.S. Department of State. And FYI, he also had been the chief legal draftsman of the Marshall Plan the year before. I am blessed to have worked with him later, from 1979 until his death in 1989, and to have learned so much from him.

Brendochka
9/1/23