From the way our dear Western allies are behaving towards us these days, it doesn't seem like they would tolerate our neutrality. Written by Bálint Botond.
What should we do if NATO sends troops to Ukraine and the big war breaks out? This question, unfortunately, can also be asked: what should Hungary do if the majority of NATO states, regardless of the legal situation, de facto enters the war on the side of the Ukrainians? The fact that this issue, like all other steps necessary for war (conscription, expanding the active air defense zone of countries bordering Ukraine and shooting down Russian assets over Ukraine, etc.), is constantly included in the statements of Western politicians, shows that the Ukrainians are already they cannot last long without help.
And that for many crazy people, the defeat of the Ukrainians is not an option, or a ceasefire, or perhaps peace, that draws the borders on the current front lines. If a functioning Ukrainian state remains at all and there is no need to deal with a complete disintegration.
The question is, what does the US think about this? Is it really completely irrational to imagine that before the elections, the Biden administration would officially send troops to Ukraine under NATO ties? For any kind of mission, not even formally a peacekeeping task, say to the west bank of the Dnieper. Well it is.
This would drastically damage Biden's chances, which are not iron-clad anyway, or the still-unknown figure who will replace him, even if the intervention would not immediately lead to an escalation.
NATO is slowly turning from a defense alliance into an offensive, expanding military alliance.
However, its key members and leaders slowly want to make uncritical participation in offensive, offensive, and influence-expanding operations a condition of protection. Is it possible to stay out of this?
A war can be started not only with a declaration of war or a "special military operation", but also with an expansion in the sphere of interest of other powers that prompts the other side to take some kind of action.
Obviously, the Western position is that the defense expansion in the East is not offensive, but the actions of the Russians towards the West are. Western rhetoric, which is of course also propaganda by definition, is now renaming as "defense" those preventive military actions outside NATO territory, the possibility of which could not even arise until now according to the letter of the NATO Basic Treaty.
Do we have a chance to remain neutral in a NATO-Russia conflict initiated by NATO?
If the Russians attack NATO or one or more of its member states, there is of course no question that we must participate in the defense. But a NATO-Russian conflict or armed conflict that occurs on Ukrainian territory and possibly spreads from there to NATO territory is not necessarily considered an attack to which the NATO treaty applies.
NATO only protects its members in the event of an unprovoked armed attack. So, if, say, Estonia attacks Russia and the Russians then occupy the country, if the territory of another NATO country is not attacked in the meantime, that certain common defense will not necessarily come into effect.
This seems to be a matter of interpretation, but it really isn't. Ukraine is not a NATO country, not a NATO territory. He is certainly not entitled to protection under the NATO treaty. The Russian attack wants to prevent it from becoming a NATO member and thus a "defense alliance" hostile to Russia appears on another border section in the immediate vicinity of the Russian core areas. Compared to this, the West increasingly behaves as if it has not only a moral but also a contractual obligation to protect Ukraine.
This whole train of thought has nothing to do with NATO's basic treaty, with military logic, it is entirely politics.
Hungary and all Eastern European countries joined NATO in order to prevent Russian imperial aspirations. The possibility that this membership would lead to a pre-emptive war against Russia within a quarter of a century, and that we would have to fight this war on the frontiers of the Russian Empire, did not even arise.
This is what we are talking about now. This war could be exactly the kind of preventive war the Germans started in 1941.
The West must enter Ukraine in order for it not to belong to the Russians. I don't even know if it is Russian propaganda to say that Ukraine can only be a free, democratic country if Western troops are stationed on its territory and even fight there against the invaders.
Let's say, now you understand why the majority of people were not able to accept the interpretation that in 1944-45 two genocidal dictatorships fought each other on the territory of Hungary, using the Hungarians and all their wealth for their own purposes.
If the Germans had won, they would have colonized us in exactly the same way as the Soviets did later. Now they want to use us against the Russians in the same way as then. Of course, only and exclusively in our own well-conceived interest, for the freedom of the peoples of Europe and the Ukrainians.
Can we be neutral? Both Switzerland and Austria are neutral in the military sense, but they were not on the march routes of major wars in the earlier eras of military technology either.
Of course, they can also be neutral, since they are not threatened by any kind of attack and their exclusion from this military alliance is not so uncomfortable for the West. But for Hungary, NATO membership is also a protection against small-minded tendencies, and in the Balkans, which is prone to destabilization, a state can disintegrate or a war can break out at any time.
From the way our dear Western allies are behaving towards us these days, it doesn't seem like they would tolerate our neutrality.
It is simply unacceptable for them that we do not sacrifice our lives and blood for their great common European goals, but only enjoy the fruits of eventual victory, such as the future peace that can supposedly be achieved through this war.
When German politicians start talking about pan-European conscription, or a pan-European army that is commanded from Brussels and Berlin based on their values, they evoke the spirit of 1941, but even more so of 1944-45. We cannot afford to bleed again on foreign soil.
Europe paid for the First World War with its leading role in the world, and because of the Second World War, it lost its independence and freedom of strategic decision-making. How will we pay for the third great war? With our well-being and personal freedom as well? Or will we even lose our countries? And it could be much worse.
Cover image: NATO is slowly turning from a defense alliance into an offensive, expanding military alliance
Source: Unspash.com
