“We Have Managed To Make Budapest Widely Known in NATO”

Mr State Secretary! You told at the international conference held on 12 March in Parliament on the tenth anniversary of our accession to NATO, how you saw the long road to full membership. And what I am curious about now are your personal experiences of the ten years that have passed since the accession.

Of course, one cannot start the events with 12 March, 1999, the day of our accession, for we can only judge the value of a given event if we also know the road that led there. Therefore I believed it was important to identify the points leading to the accession in my speech before the National Assembly. I would like to repeat it now that in my opinion, our country had stepped up to the level of accession as a result of the peace partnership process. Or I could say that peace partnership, in other words the period of preparation was really good for Hungary because we had the opportunity to learn more about what we had to prepare for, what we could expect in the Alliance. We had developed the forms of cooperation with NATO during this period.

Why was all this significant?

Because one has to be aware, and has to state it in a self-critical way that even back in the times of peace partnership, as it unfortunately turned out later, we made many commitments for the realization of which there was no sufficient funding. What I believe is – though it was never publicized – that we were chasing our promises and sometimes this did not show a good picture of the country. For me the greatest challenge in this position – the title of which was changed in June 2006, when the new act came into effect, but the responsibilities have not changed since my appointment, that is since March 2001 – has always been how our commitments made to NATO and the expectations of the Alliance can be approximated, while insisting on staying on the ground of realities. In other words, how to restore our credibility in the eye of our allies.

Have we managed to do that? Has our credibility been restored?

These almost uninterrupted budgetary constraints still exist.

When we are facing budgetary constraints in the Ministry of Defence – for example today when we also have to bear the consequences of the economic crisis –, a decision has to be made on what the priority tasks will be. It was already mentioned at the conference referred to earlier: for the Alliance, the operations are the first priority. Which means that this is what we as a NATO member state have to take into account. Nevertheless, we also have to consider that due to the decreasing real value of budgetary support, there will be tasks the deadline of which will be postponed. A further decrease in the number of personnel of the Hungarian Defence Forces – as a cost saving option – is absolutely out of the question in my opinion. Due to the proportional burden sharing represented by NATO, we must keep the current size of the military and the related level of ambitions. And relying on this military, we have to maintain our share of operational participation – on average, a thousand Hungarian troops serve abroad a year. Because in the Alliance, we do not only benefit from security guarantees but it is also our duty to contribute to this collective security. And I think Hungary has given an outstanding perfomance in this field as well in the past ten years.

What are your fondest memories of the past ten years?

In the past ten years, the greatest experience for me was undoubtedly the fact that I had the opportunity to listen to the speeches of heads of state and government leaders at meetings and conferences on various level. Since 2001, when President George W. Bush visited Europe for the first time as president, I have been present at every NATO summit and defence ministerial meeting. Moreover, until 2004 I also participated in the meetings of foreign ministers. Therefore I had the chance to experience personally how the leaders of the countries see the future of NATO, security challenges, or the issues of capacity development for instance. And on these summits and ministerial meetings one can hear various national standpoints from the source – by the way not only from the allies but for example in the framewok of a NATO–Russia Council, from the Russian president as well – and see the reactions. This is an entirely different experience than gathering information from newspaper reports, since the atmosphere can also be felt and this turns the whole thing into a personal experience. In these meetings one could realize that there is not a ’first among equals’ among heads of state, government leaders, or even ministers. When the final decision is made, everybody’s word matters. Everyone is free and encouraged to say what their opinion is and you do not have to be worried about being ’shouted down’. I am very glad that I am one of those lucky people who could experience it and can still experience it today.

Which specific event do you remember the most?

The one I like to remember the most is the informal meeting of NATO defence ministers, held in Budapest in October 2008. Even because we were preparing for this event for long years. In the Ministry of Defence an agreement was reached back in 2005 on Hungary’s intention to host this event in the fall of 2008. We announced our intention to NATO in 2006, and started the organization process in the same year. I can say that we did our best and demonstrated that we can organize and provide the proper conditions. The point of these informal meetings is that they provide a more free atmosphere for the defence ministers’ arguments and discussions than any of the official meetings regularly held in Brussels. In the Belgian capital reports have to be acknowledged and decisions have to be made most of the time, while at the informal meetings there is an opportunity to clash views. By the way the Budapest meeting was very successful. Even because later the participants often cited that ’we have already discussed this in Budapest!’. For example the decision on NATO’s activity concerning drugs in Afghanistan was made in our capital, and this fact has been emphasized on more than one occasion. In other words, we have managed to make Budapest widely known in NATO, and today the ministers of the member states do not only mention Prague, Riga or Bucharest frequently, but Budapest as well.

As you have mentioned, you have been in this position in the ministry since 2001. What has been your greatest success in this period?

I can answer this question without thinking about it: the elaboration and approval of the National Military Strategy. Because it is a historic document. I returned from America in 1992, where I had been studying at the academy of the general staff. My first position in the Hungarian Defence Forces was with the flight and air defence command, and soon I became an employee of the ministry. Since then, I have been present at every forum that was dealing with the transformation and development of the Hungarian Defence Forces. This is significant because it came up even then that there would be a need for a national security strategy, as well as a sectoral document, the national military strategy, that can be elaborated on the basis of the former. When I was appointed in March 2001, we agreed with my colleague who was in a similar position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that we must advance this issue, which came to a standstill. We did, and a year later the government adopted the National Security Strategy. We started the preparations of the National Military Strategy, but since the new government which came into office in 2002 began to review the National Security Policy which was adopted a bit earlier, we had to wait until it was completed, which meant the middle of 2004. Following that, the draft of the National Military Strategy was completed by June 2005 and passed every harmonization forums, it was only waiting to be included as an agenda point of a government session. But somehow this did not happen. The elaboration of the strategy came into the limelight again when Dr. Imre Szekeres was appointed Minister of Defence. The government adopted the strategy on January 21, 2009, therefore for the first time since the change of the political system we are in a situation that the National Security Strategy and the National Military Strategy, which are necessary as regards the development of the Hungarian Defence Forces, are both available. Perhaps I can say this without any modesty: I have also put a lot of work into this, therefore the completion and adoption of the documents is one of my very pleasant personal experiences.

Since our accession to NATO, there have been some ’critical points’ on several occasions which have changed Hungarian military thinking to a certain extent. Such as the aerial warfare in Serbia in 1999, the terrorist attack against the US in 2001, the strategic and defence review, the EU accession in 2004, or the takeover of the NATO operation in Afghanistan. Which one had the greatest impact on the Hungarian Defence Forces?

I believe it was the strategic review that began in 2002. And the reason for this is that now we are examining security challenges from a new dimension as a result of this review. It all started out from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the US and the decision that was made in May 2002 at the Reykjavík meeting of NATO foreign ministers, namely that NATO would go ‘outside the territory’. I had the honour to attend this meeting personally. Back then it also became obvious that the content of defence had to be transformed, for attacks against the Alliance can or might be launched not only from neighbouring countries but even from thousands of kilometers from our borders. And we must be capable of preventing this together with the allies. In other words, the Alliance must be capable of implementing operations outside its territory. However, the new military capabilities were essential to that. And what effects did it have on the Hungarian Defence Forces? Following the aerial warfare of 1999 in Serbia, the capability development targets we set for the corps were fundamentally required for territorial defence. When the terrorist attack happened, we had to say that other types of capabilities are needed. We have to forget about thinking in terms of traditional ‘big wars’ only, when militaries with millions of troops fight each other, because this is not what we are talking about today. Consequently the 2002 review was based on the concept that there are new challenges and one has to be able to work behind our borders as well. Of course, this fact created a dilemma as well because we had to make a decision: what kind of military to develop? A part of which is responsible for our own national defence, the second participates in the military operations of NATO, and the third part in the military operations of the European Union? Naturally, things do not work like that, and this is why in 2002 we decided for capability-based development. Which means that our aim was to create a Hungarian Defence Forces based on capabilities, and these capabilities are used in accordance with administrative decisions, if necessary, in the country, or in NATO or EU operations.

Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, the Secretary General of NATO emphasized at the meeting on March 12: there will be changes in the Alliance. There are various priorities which have to be developed. What do you expect NATO and the Hungarian Defence Forces will look like in ten years?

The most important challenge facing NATO is that the transatlantic relation has to be renewed. During the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States of America will put a much stronger emphasis on consultations with the allies than before. The US will be more interested to hear their opinion. Therefore it will be easier to reach consensus in respective issues. In other words, there will not be acts like the ones in the period preceding the second Gulf War, when NATO member states were arguing with each other before the global public. On the other hand, the transatlantic relation has two sides. The United States need a strong Europe, and Europe needs the US. Therefore Europe also has to do more in this field. But the challenge today is is the economic crisis facing the US and Europe alike. Once again, this means that we have to join our forces. To avoid that efforts are wasted on a national basis, but trying to achieve our targets on an allied basis instead. I think the most important challenge NATO will be facing is that it must demonstrate a new union. And on the basis of this new union, a new strategic concept has to be elaborated, which will define for the coming 10-15 years what NATO is about, what are the challenges it has to face, and what are its political-military aims. And the Hungarian Defence Forces – in my opinion – will continue the processes that have been started. They will be focusing on operations, but we also have to concentrate on the development of capabilities. The capabilites we may need in the coming 5 to 10 years. Because without capability development, our operational capabilities will decrease as well in a few years’ time. I think ten years from now the military will be more professional than today, even though we have already made a significant progress to date. Just think about it: the last enlisted soldier was discharged in November 2004, and only a bit more than four years have passed since then, there is still a big difference between the military we used to have then and the one we have today. Difference in professionalism, approach. I believe the defence forces will progress. Even if these capability developments happen slower than we had planned originally, but they will be implemented eventually. I think in ten years, the structure of the military will be roughly the same as today. Of course, the internal ratios may be modified in respective corps. However, the current structure will remain. In addition to that, the majority of military organizations will have more modern equipments. I think being a soldier will be popular among young people. The military I expect to see in ten years will have stronger capabilities, will be more deployable, and their leaders and subordinates will be motivated as well.