Hungary in NATO: The Case of a Half Empty Glass

Abstract

The subtitle might be mutual great expectations and, to a certain extent, mutual disappointment. NATO made a bold decision in the late 1990s to start expanding towards Eastern Europe. It was obvious that none of the candidate countries was militarily prepared to be a full-fledged member of the Alliance; the decision to take some of them into NATO was first and foremost a political one. The expansion wished to prevent the emergence of a potential security grey zone in the middle of Europe, as well as to create a zone of political, economic and social stability as the Atlantic Alliance is not only about a collective security organization in the traditional sense, but it is also a community of states which share the same values. It was also expected in the capitals of the member countries that the new allies would do their best to catch up with the old members in, among others, military matters too. However, by the time the first three Central European countries joined the Alliance, NATO’s mission had already substantially changed. ‘Out-of-area’ missions had replaced the predominantly territorial defence posture and these new missions, as a response to some new types of challenges, had become more complex in nature too. The new members, in general, had been looking for NATO membership mainly because of the Cold War-era security guarantees and were, on the whole, unprepared to contribute meaningfully to the capabilities of the organization.