Hungary has joined Donald Trump’s newly unveiled Board of Peace as a founding member in Davos, with Viktor Orbán warning that war brings inflation, sanctions, high energy prices, and economic decline. Balázs Orbán hailed the platform as ‘one of the first institution of the new world order,’ while European powers such as France and the United Kingdom refused to join the new conflict resolution forum.
Kyiv has summoned Hungary’s ambassador in protest at Budapest’s rejection of further EU financial assistance to Ukraine, prompting a sharp response from Péter Szijjártó. The foreign minister said Hungary will not help finance Ukraine ‘over the next decade’, warning against ‘squandering the future of our youth’ and accusing Ukraine of interfering in Hungary’s internal affairs.
The European Parliament’s liberal–progressive camp has renewed attacks on Hungary after the Commission approved €16 billion in SAFE defence funding, with Green MEPs urging delays until after April’s election. Despite Kaja Kallas insisting funds will be audited, critics again weaponize the ‘rule of law’ to block Hungary’s military modernization and influence its election.
‘The return of the power of the Marque will underscore enduring truths in global affairs: that laws of war bend to state needs, and quasi-legal private forces remain potent instruments.’
In his inauguration speech a year ago today, President Trump spoke about issues of domestic lawfare, border security, energy, peace, territorial expansion, and government efficiency. Now, one year later, it is worth examining: how has his second presidency measured up to those promises?
‘The PRC’s peaceful rise and commitment to economic partnership and global security is a theme it has projected since its inception in 1949.’
How is the current series of anti-government demonstrations different from previous protests in Iran? What are the most likely scenarios for system change? How strong is the Ayatollah regime? We asked the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute to explain what is actually happening in Iran.
‘Some were permitted to take shelter with relatives in the countryside, but the majority of such requests were rejected. Only in the rarest cases did deportees arrive under relatively consolidated conditions…This article will focus especially on deported families with little children, and our further articles will inspect other interesting cases as well.’
‘The honest takeaway from the year’s first two to three weeks is this: to the American Empire, everything remains on the table. Yet its interest in the world has never been narrower. The United States is not retreating from the globe, but from those regions that no longer yield dividends. For the same reasons, China and Russia will likely follow suit.’
‘In the case of Ukraine and Spain, it also produces circumstantial parallels that obscure the unbridgeable gap between the very natures of the two conflicts, conflating the ideological antagonisms of the 1930s at their most nationally internecine with a globalized, technological war for territory. Far from far-sighted, the mantra that Europe should re-learn forgotten lessons or resign itself to perish here becomes dangerously myopic.’