Hungary’s Rearmament: Past and Future
Hungary’s rearmament is looking to its traditional German suppliers, while also reaching beyond blocs to Türkiye and Brazil.
Hungary’s rearmament is looking to its traditional German suppliers, while also reaching beyond blocs to Türkiye and Brazil.
‘From 1974 to the late 1980s, Hungary’s state security closely monitored the Turkish embassy at 45 Úri Street in the Buda Castle, keeping tabs on diplomats, their residences, and even personal correspondence. Newly examined documents reveal how counterintelligence observed NATO diplomats, highlighting both the meticulous methods of the secret services and the routine nature of embassy life.’
Russia’s claim that Ukraine attempted a drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence has cast a shadow over fragile peace talks just as negotiations appeared to be nearing a breakthrough. While Kyiv denies the allegation and Washington urges caution, the incident risks hardening positions in Moscow and derailing momentum towards a settlement.
‘While a successful and prosperous EU is in the best interest of Budapest, unfortunately nothing illustrates what Europe has become in 2025 better than the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, which spoke of the “prospect of [Europe’s] civilizational erasure”.’
‘The leaders of the most successful small or medium-sized countries tend to be acutely aware of the dexterity required to maintain security…it seems very unlikely that they and others like them will get lost in their own imagination or succumb to the self-fulfilling fatalism of the postmodernist cosmopolitan mind that gave birth to the “end of history”, the “rules-based liberal international order”, and all the rest of that dangerous nonsense.’
‘On Christmas day in 1944 Hungary, illusion and reality collided. The promise of “liberation” or “redemption” was drowned out by violence, coercion, and fear on all sides. What survives of that Christmas are the testimonies, the fragmentary voices that reveal how ordinary lives were crushed between two brutal systems at the very moment meant for peace.’
Why does Germany react with moral panic to Washington’s 2025 National Security Strategy, a document clarifying national interests while exposing Europe’s civilizational erosion, strategic weakness, and German political culture that treats realism as illegitimate, borders as taboo, and national interests as extremism, revealing Germany’s inability to act as a nation?
‘I do think we’ve got to make it clear that visas will not be issued to people with a history of antisemitism or a history of support for ideologies which are inconsistent with the liberal, pluralist, democratic way of life that we enjoy in this country.’
Once symbols of festive calm and Christian heritage, Western Europe’s Christmas markets have increasingly become targets of Islamist terror since the early 2000s. From Strasbourg to Berlin and Magdeburg, repeated attacks and foiled plots have reshaped how Europe celebrates Christmas—forcing heavy security, cancellations and a growing sense of fear.
‘It is a fact that if there are enigmatic figures in 20th-century Hungarian history, Kálmán Rátz is certainly among them.’