The Duran Podcast - Hungary's Role in Great Power Politics - Zoltán Koskovics, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Hungary's Role in Great Power Politics - Zoltán Koskovics, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hello and welcome. I'm joined today by Alexander Mercuris and Sultan Koshkowicz, who's a geopolitical analyst at the Center for Fundamental Rights in Budapest in Hungary. Welcome. And I think Hungary is a fascinating case study, I guess. It's obviously it's not one of the great powers, but it's definitely front and center in the great power politics these days. whether we look at the EU, Western relations with Russia, and of course the whole issue now of extending sanctions or not. And I also think that Hungary often becomes a case study in dissent within the EU at least. This is something we don't have much in the EU anymore. That is dissent.

And we saw that for many years. Yeah, there were a lot of threats of sanctions if Hungary didn't fall in line. And especially now during the war in Ukraine, we see that the 100. Hungary has really stood out. That is, the Europeans suspended all diplomacy with the Russians, while Hungary made efforts with Orban to go to both Kiev and Moscow to push for some form of negotiations. And he was indeed punished by the EU for this. And of course, now we have this energy conflict.

No point to go too deep into it. But obviously, Ukraine suspended gas transit to Hungary and Europe, yet the EU has not really supported Hungary in this. Indeed, it's also been silent as Ukraine attacked Turkstream. And of course, now we see Poland has begun to use some verbal attacks against Hungary. So I was just curious, how can we, I guess, understand Hungary's position and where all of this comes from? Well, it's a big topic. Sorry.

It's going to be a long conversation, so we are going to have time to approach it from every possible angle. Well, I think the departure point is how do you see your responsibility as somebody who leads to a foreign organization? Art two approaches to some of them in the ideological. We typically call it liberal internationalism or liberal idealism because liberalism has been anti-reason. the dominant ideology in the West, but it could be any sort of idealism. Idealism, there's conservative idealism, there was socialist idealism. So idealism and realism, that's the other basic approach. I don't think I have to waste too many words on this.

Everybody basically understands that Hungarian foreign policy is a realist one. It departs from the circumstances that we find ourselves in. It identifies current problems that we would like to solve. It identifies current opportunities that we would like to gain and based upon that, Hungary conducts a foreign policy. This is stark different from any version of idealism, which identifies at points, which they want to reach. That is not in itself problematic. It becomes problematic when idealism ignores the circumstances. And then it becomes dogmatic and there are basically pronouncements. Let's take an example that is more in the past so we can

appear usually. There was this decision by Western liberalism that Afghanistan should be a liberal democracy. This was an idealist pronouncement which drove Western European and North American foreign policy for two decades. In the end, they managed to get from the Taliban to the Taliban in 20 years at the cost of an immense number of human lives, human suffering and a lot of treasure that also counts. So this is the problem with idealism. I fear that the EU's idealistic foreign policy towards Ukraine and Russia is this version of blind idealism.

While Hungary is, well, if we take the entirety of the conflict, Hungary is the only member state in the European Union that has conducted realistic approach to foreign policy and to the conflict in Ukraine. Now we are joined by Slovakia, to a lesser extent, Italy, and hopefully other European countries will soon wake up to the realities of what this war looks like. But it's not just a problem between idealism and realism, because realistically, it's very easy to explain why Hungary doesn't need this war. Hungary doesn't need these sanctions, at least most of them, at least those of them that hurt us more than the Russians. Why Europe doesn't need this war and why Europe doesn't need these sanctioned policies,

at least most of them have those who grew up more than Russia. It seems to be easy. I can build a very convincing moral case or idealists, why Western nations should not be involved in what is essentially a war between two Slavic countries. I could build a strong moral case, I believe, that the loss of life on the battlefield and among civilians, at this point serves no realistic purpose. That the end to the war would serve Ukrainian interests, and it would also, perhaps to a lesser extent, would serve Russian interests as well.

Despite all of this, there's virtually nobody in Europe who is talking about ending the war, except as you mentioned, Prime Minister Viktor Orban. That is a most extraordinary thing, because foreign policy in Europe, has, to a great extent, become a complete denial of the realities that are piling up all around itself. So we have a major economic crisis playing out in Germany. I don't think anybody disputes this any longer. We have a sense that we're losing the initiative in diplomatic action, because a problem that is a European problem, this is a war in Europe,

Europe is increasingly looking is going to be settled or negotiated by outsiders, the Russians and the Americans, talking to each other, which ought to be something that ought to concern Europeans. Or so one might think. we have growing rebellions on the part of much of the population of Europe, where we see this in elections in Germany, in elections recently in Britain, where the Reform Party came third and is now steadily rising in the polls, and is talking a completely different, taking a completely different approach to this problem, one that is not that different in some respects from Hungary's, And yet we see at the very centre in the EU centre, in Brussels, but also amongst those governments that continue to be aligned with the centre, which are the majority of European governments, a continuing determination to close ears and close eyes and pretend that this really isn't happening. and at the same time to beat up on the one European member state, which not only is talking in a realistic way, but which is increasingly being vindicated by events. America appears to be shifting its position. We've had an election of the United States. We have a new president, the president of the United States,

has been talking to your prime minister. I understand that the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has talked to Mr. Seattle, who is your foreign minister. He's not so far as I know, talked Mr. Rubio, hasn't yet talked to any of the other European foreign ministers. Isn't this something that is very strange that we in Europe simply don't get, the rest of us in Europe, don't get that we are being completely, we're isolating, we're marginalising ourselves and engaging in increasingly fantastic diplomacy like the one we saw from Mr. Stahmer recently when he went to Kiev and signed the 100-year agreement with the Ukrainians, which talked about NATO membership, British bases, mutual control of the Sea of Azov, the Baltic Sea, whatever.

How do you explain this complete inability of Europeans to even now see that this thing is going wrong for them in the way that it clearly is? Well, let's start with the easiest one. Why did Stormer, Prime Minister Stormert, signed this one under the under-year treaty with Kiev, security guarantees, British involvement, a lot of British taxpayer money. The only reason I can possibly assume that is behind this is that Mr. Starmar does not believe that Ukraine is going to be there for 100 years. I think that he assumes that Ukraine is losing more catastrophically

than frankly even the facts warrant because Ukraine is not at the point where it has to disappear from the met. But nothing else can explain Stormer's decision to sign this treaty. Or he is completely blind and deaf to the national interests of Great Britain, which unfortunately is increasing than more than more than globally, given all the other countries in Europe. But Britain does not have

this track record of elevating politicians who are unaware of the British national interests, whether they be labor or conservatives or liberals at an earlier age. And now the other problem about Europe, you mentioned that basically these countries are becoming ungovernable. France has become ungovernable. I think that the German elections in February may produce a result that is ungovernable. In Spain, we have an increasingly desperate minority government by the socialists. There have been a war shift in most European countries. There will be elections soon in the Czech Republic in Slovenia. We expect a rightward shift there. Poland to some point. against this trend, but that is just one example.

Now, the reason for this, I think, is that you can only deny reality so far. There is an element in this postmodern version of liberal politics that is very similar to Bolshevism, in that dogma supersedes the census. Whatever your senses tell you about the state of your economy, about the well-being of your population, about the attitudes of your voters, dogma, overrides all those sensory impulses and it drives you towards basically a pass that leads to the abyss. And let's make a mistake about this. Europe is in a horrible situation right now. We need an immediate and radical course correction. One thing is basically natural.

There were two pillars of European prosperity. One was cheap Chinese labor. And this is simply going away naturally without any geopolitical shocks by virtue of China rising out and becoming a first world country and not a third world country anymore. That obviously coincides with the fact that cheap labor is no longer an aspect of that type of an economy. So we have to let that go. The other pillar of European prosperity was cheap Russian energy and we have basically destroyed that with the sanctions war. In this situation, European competitiveness is at a catastrophically low point, and the only possible way out of this would actually be a green transition, but there are two problems with that. If it can work, it will work in the midterm and not the short term, so not next year and not the year after that. And the second problem is the green transition still requires resources.

They may be different resources from the carbohydrates, oil and gas that we were used to in the previous era, but there's resources known as. And guess who has these resources, the Russians and the Chinese? So Europe finds itself in a very difficult, precarious position. The only way out of this is to negotiate lasting settlement with regard to the war in Ukraine and to reestablish trade. In the mid-run, in five, six, seven years, probably the infrastructure could be built out to work with the Arab states in the Gulf region. They could send us oil and they could send us gas insufficient quantities.

But then again, this ideological problem with the Europeans who think that their values are universal and that they have a right to impose them in other nations. Obviously, the postmodern version of European liberalism, its values, does not coincide with the values of the Muslim world, and they are very antagonistic towards each other. If you recall, there was the World Cup, the Football World Cup in Qatar. What did the Germans do during the Football World Cup in Qatar? They started speaking about how badly the Qataris retreat and the community.

Qatar is one of those countries who could really help Europe diversify in terms of gas, especially, but also oil. And in the middle of the crisis, the economic conflict with Russia, the Europeans start badmouthing, their shortest, easiest, alternative to Qatar. This doesn't make it. Another element of this reality is how the Germans close their nuclear power stations. in the middle of an energy crisis. What on earth would make you do that? That's basically very similar to when the Soviets in the 1920s kept forcing the collectivization or the state ownership of farmland, even despite the huge hunger that was being created.

Ideology overrides reality and this always needs to a catastrophe. So, yeah, and why did this happen? It's very difficult, but unfortunately, Fukuyama was right to the extent that liberalism, at least triumphed in Western Europe and triumphed absolutely. Liberalism basically managed to exclude every other approach, to politics, to the economy, to society. And to this day, we are suffering from this inclusion, because very valid idea based on reality. excluded from public discourse. The leading politicians were not allowed to speak about this stuff and the mainstream press was not allowed to discuss this matter. Academics were not allowed to study these matters or at least they didn't receive

anything for it. And as a result, we have boxed ourselves into this very small postmodern leftist liberal corner of the world and we are increasingly isolating Europe from the rest of the world. Imagine when this war started, one of the promises of Ursula von der Leyen was that we are going to isolate Russia. Well, we are three years into this. We are isolated from Russia. We have huge problems with China, with India. The Africans hate us. We have a problem with the Muslim world. And right now, we've lost basically North America. I mean, but not for long. A very sharp conservative term is coming to Canada.

And Donald Trump, he himself personally has repudiated the so-called liberal world order, or the rule-based world order. But his election means, in a very clear way, means that the American people have decided to turn the ship of state away from this liberal course and to repudiate, at least the postmodern version of liberalism. Europe right now can only basically talk to Latin America and nobody else. Interesting, yeah, you focus on the ideology and narrative, because when I initially asked you what Budapest's position was,

it's because not everyone is familiar with it. I guess Hungary is not really that controversial because of arguments which are being repudiated. rather, the problem with Hungary appears to be that it doesn't align with the narratives because they undermine its interest. I mean, like the basic

things, such as I should say, when obviously we're not, for example, the war, we're not winning, the sanctions are not working and without energy we will de-industrialize and the continent will become more irrelevant. This seems like very common sense and

things which were said a long time ago, but no one was allowed to say, because we simplified it very much because we have an ideology saying this is only acceptable thing to do, but also we only have narrative. So this is the Russian narrative and the EU narrative. And the EU narrative is that we're winning, sanctions are working, and we can cut ourselves off Russian energy and nothing will happen. Now, obviously, this is, yeah, this was always absurd. But it's this tribalism, I think, which is always the point of departure. And this is also what the Polish Prime Minister does.

came out when he said to Orban saying, listen, if you don't support the sanctions and continuing the war, then you're with team Putin. If you're with team Europe, then you have to support ABC. So we're not actually starting at the point of departure where a discussion is what creates prosperity, what creates security, how can we end the suffering in this war? No, it's always a line with us, not with the other side. And I think this is where Hungary always steps wrong on the toes of the EU because it tends to put I guess interest and common sense

first and I mean this idea that the narratives in the West and the narratives we have now usually support for example long war in Ukraine they always have to be defended from facts that is you know the EU keeps saying that Ukraine must fight or there will be new Ukraine even though at the same time now you have the

intelligence chief Budanov saying if we continue fighting there will be no Ukraine. So it's the opposite of what they're saying. I agree for the first time in my life with Mr. Budan. Yeah, first time. But also we have to support Ukrainians. They rely on us. But most Ukrainians want negotiations.

So who are these Ukrainians we keep talking about? We're saying they're winning while they're being decimated. Of course, we have to say that they're winning, because that's the only way to continue this support for public support for continuing the war. But that just means we're ignoring all the human suffering. And somehow this is the good guy position. It's, they cut themselves off from energy.

They're predictably, the route to Hungary doesn't want to take it. They're de-industrializing. But instead of admitting this foolish decision, they're standing on stage saying, oh, the Russians cut us off. It's beyond absurd, isn't it? First, they're doing this victory lapse that we cut ourselves off Russian energy, and now we're energy independent, and then the industries are collapsing.

no, oh, it was the Russians. I mean, surely we have to relate to reality if we're going to have course correction, because as you pointed out, very excellent, you know, we're obviously going off a cliff here. This isn't sustainable. But if we all need this demand for loyalty to the ideology and the narrative, how is it possible to identify problems? How can you actually have any course correction?

It's just this instinct to always shut down dissent. I wish there would be more efforts to meet Budapest, at least to discuss its positions. Yeah, this is what I'm, if it had horrible arguments, yeah, shut down Hungary with arguments, but this idea of just punishing dissent. I think there are no arguments anymore. I think they realized that, yeah, Hungary is right, but this is the position we have taken. So I don't know. So let's make this very clear.

I don't think I have to waste too many words on this. podcast about this because you talk about this quite often. Marie is on Team Hungary. Now, this is not a shocking statement to probably any of your viewers, but it could be seen as a shocking statement to many consumers of mainstream media, especially in the last 20 years. But I want to stress this. The idea that national leaders are on their own nation's team is basically what has been the norm for the entirety of human history, or at least the history of civilization, except for the

last 15, 20 years. In all other ages, all other people just assumed that national leaders would be on their own team. And today we live in a world where indeed, there is a clash of narratives and don't, let's not underestimate the importance of narratives. Narratives are important in politics because they tell a story to your people why you engage in certain policies. And these narratives are important, but they have to at least try to be truthful. Right. And the biggest mistake that anybody in a position where they make decisions or advice decision makers can make is when they fully immerse themselves in their own narrative

and close their ears to every other information. And that is what happened in Brussels. That is what happened in Berlin. That is what happened, unfortunately, in London, in Kiev even, and in Moscow. I think that they are probably more rational than the Europeans, but they are also closing their ears to the very real problems that the Russians are facing, especially now with Donald Trump coming to the White House. It's going to be a more dangerous world for the Russians as well. And in terms of sanctions, the fact that the European citizens,

sanctions are utterly self-defeating doesn't mean that they aren't also hurting the Russians. The Russian economy is also suffering from the sanctions, and that has to be taken account. I mean, what happens to their inflation, which has these moments of high fever and then it subsides, that's not a healthy state of an economy. Their spending, defense spending, is through the roof, so Russia is being affected. It's really in terms of this sanctions war, it is like when, two people find a tiger in the jungle. They have to run, but they don't have to run faster than the tiger.

One of them has to run faster than the other one. Right now in these sanctions terms, the Russians are running faster than the Europeans. There's no question about that. But a tiger is still chasing them too. So everybody should basically open their eyes to the realities and accept that there are different points of view. And you asked me why this happened in Europe that no dissenting views are allowed in public discourse. Remember when at the beginning, or the middle of the Hungarian EU presidency, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, went to Brussels or Strasbourg. I don't remember the

plenary session of the European Parliament. He came with 10, 15 minutes long, rather objective elaboration of what the Hungarian presidency has done so far and what's its aim so far. And then after that, I don't know, it's a pub pro that broke out on the floor of the European Parliament. Everybody was shouting, nobody was listening to. Everybody, anybody, and all they cared was their own little dogmatic statements condemning Hungary for one thing or another.

I remember there was a, somebody was condemning a. for buying the Russian gait. Yeah, it's true that we buy Russian guests. Perhaps a liberal consumer of news who is very much in favor of helping Ukraine may think that that's a bad thing. But if that person lives, for example, in Spain, he should understand that Spain buys three or four times more Russian gas than Hungary. And this is true for every European member state.

So every piece of criticism that they formulate against Hungary is either something, that they are already doing themselves in even larger to an even larger extent, or it eventually turns out that they are wrong and the Hungarians are right. The classical example of that is mass migration. In 2015, you guys remember that they threw the book at us. We're basically doing what, protecting our southern border? By now, it's 10 years later, but virtually everybody agrees with us that borders need to be protected.

And Europe has a deportation problem. Hundreds of thousands of illegally and millions will have to be deported from a continent that has the dark chapter of history in the 20th century. It still has to be done. Do you know which country doesn't have to mess deport people? Hungary. In France, they have passed a law that bans women from wearing, I think, the burqa, and anyway, traditional Muslim women's wear. France banned women from doing that. Do you know which country doesn't have to tell women on the territory of its jurisdiction what to wear and what not to wear?

Hungary. Right. So, but yeah, they should listen to us, but they aren't. Well, you brought actually, you brought us to a very important point, because as you know, I was in Hungary just about two months ago. That was where we met. And the thing that struck me when I was there was firstly, what a very profoundly useful. European place, Hungary is, but in many respects, it is the Europe I used to live in. I used to remember. I don't mean that Hungary isn't modern, that the economy isn't as technologically

advanced as it is in other places in Europe. In some ways, it's more. And it's an efficient, well-run economy. That was my impression. But if you're talking about the way which politics, is conducted, the kind of political debates that happen, the fact that there is dialogue and discussion between people of different views, the fact that there are conservatives and that being a conservative in Hungary means a certain number of things that once upon a time was the same as what it meant to be a conservative in say Barbaria or England. Well, you found that in Hungary still. You find leftists in Hungary as well.

It was to an extraordinary extent a place where I found myself as a person who obviously grew up in that previous Europe, the Europe before narratives, get out of control, liberal approaches become doctrinaire and imposed. It was like going back to a sort of island, an oasis, if you like, of what we used to be. And in a kind of a way, being that, being the way that you say where you don't really have to impose restrictions on women's dress because there isn't any need to. You don't have to impose barriers on women's clothing. I'm sorry, on immigration into the, you know, you don't have to think about deportation

because you've controlled your borders. Well, these were all part of the European mainstream. within very recent history. I say it's not even history. I mean, within the lifetime of any adults of above middle age in Europe today. And can I suggest that that is perhaps one of the reasons going beyond the wall, going beyond the issue of Ukraine and Russia and the big geopolitical questions, that Hungary is so offensive to so many people.

people at the EU centre, why it gets criticised relentlessly, because it reminds us too much of the kind of society and civilization that we once all were? Well, yeah, that's an explanation, I think. I don't think most of these people have such deep, or even such deep minds to feel this even unconsciously. But there is an element to that. I would approach it from a little bit of a different angle, at least from the 19th century, but probably since the 18th century.

The idea of Western state meant basically two things, that you can control your borders, and you can afford as much liberty to your citizens as your own laws permits, and you adopt those laws in a mechanism that is, transparent and has a contribution factor from the population. Two things are lost and in that sense it's a fear.

So Germany, France, Canada, the United States until recently, Britain, unfortunately, are experiencing state failure. And that is a shameful thing to go through and perhaps that also affects this feeling of negativity that is by the liberal media and liberal politicians feel and the words hungry.

A slightly different approach would characterize this post-modern version of liberalism that I was talking about, not as a political philosophy, but as a religion. The two things are connected. Lots of pages have been written about this. But some things are more political philosophy and other things are more religion. Now, if we approach this woke, progressive liberalism, understanding that it might be a religion, then these people are having religious feelings. And then Hungary simply speaking truth, talking about reality, the reality that they reject,

we are actually hurting their religious feelings. And I often get this type of a war, especially from the radical left and the Greens. For them, this is a matter of deeply held irrational faith, and we are violating their religious feelings. It's just, I feel like we're throwing out a lot of knowledge we used to have, as you said, also Alexander. This is, this thing used to be controversial. And even, you know, I teach at the university as a professor. And I, you know, often it feels like now it suddenly has become something distant. That, you know, when you teach about Carl Polani, you know, the key issues, you know,

the society shouldn't be a mere appendage to the, to the economy. because then, of course, things will unravel quickly. But again, this should have been obvious of some of the problems of liberalism, something you have to restrain. Or, you know, if people look at Tokovil, you point out, you know, like liberalism is an ideology or in this case, a new religion, where you have to liberate from something. So it often prosperous when it's in opposition to something outdated or ineffective,

like communism, then liberalism thrives. but alone it begins to liberate itself from other things. So this is, you know, Tokwil's argument that liberty had to be balanced with, like, religious issues. Now, I find it interesting because I, yeah, I've been twice at the Hungarian Central Bank to speak there at this annual conference. And it's interesting because there, I mentioned it before on this podcast. The head of the central bank, he starts talking about how, you know, interests, how all the rates, prices, how will this affect families. of course we don't want economic, when we have

economic development, they can't only be measured in GDP, it also has been measured in the extent to which family is are doing better. It doesn't become a burden to have a family. In other words, the society shouldn't be a mere appendage. How do we support society? And so I think a lot of this,

we, yeah, these are reasonable arguments, but again, I feel like we keep throwing them out. And part of the problem, I think, is Yes, both of you have discussed, I guess why the ideology or religion has become so important. And you also used the term compared to the Soviet Union. I remember back in the 19, well, not remember, but back in the 1960s, you had the British scholars like Mitrani, who was contrasting.

We said, well, European integration sounds nice and well, but we have to differentiate between two modes. The functionalists will look, when does it make it? sense for the Europeans to integrate further. That is, when does it benefit economically, security in terms of good governance? Then, you know, you pursue integration. The other side is integration on its own should be an objective. And he compared the functionalist with the Federalist, where we have to just change things so we can concentrate power. And I feel, yeah, this is why he predicted that if we go down the Federalist route instead of the functionalist, the EU will look more like the Soviet Union. It just seems that's where we're going now,

with all these narratives and ideologies to support justice one road for further centralization of power, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it also makes us very, well, not us, the EU, very awkward when it walks around in the world, as you pointed out, we only have Latin America left because they sit in a bubble. When they go to India, they say the same as they say to Hungary. That is, you know, why are you buying Russian gas and oil? And then the Indians, have to point out, well, you're buying a lot more than we are. But again, they're always stuck in this bubble. So they think the Russians cut them off.

And it's like they don't know how to communicate with the world anymore, I think. No, India is going to be the most important country in the next 10, 15 years. They're going to go through a growth and economic development spell that will be very similar to what happened to China between the 1990s and the 2010s, the most important region of the world. they are going to be a global superpower on par or close to being on par with China and even the United States, especially if the USA faces some economic problems. And the Europeans don't understand this. The Europeans, for some reason, still think that India is somehow their colony to guide,

not mature enough to conduct its own economic and foreign policy. This is just idiosing. It's a perception of elevation that Europe as a culture, as a civilizational center, may have deserved until recently, but not anymore. If you look at our economic performance, our innovation, our infrastructural developments, and compare that to the other parts of the world, including the Arab world, including China, including even the United States, which isn't doing very well. either, by the way, and we will see that we are simply falling behind. It is not the case anymore that some of the developing nations are getting less and less behind us. It's the case that they are pulling away from us. In terms of technology, sciences, infrastructure, certainly, and I mean railroads and I mean

major ports. And we simply cannot afford to have this illusion of, delusion of superiority, affect us anymore. And this is one of the things that the Hungarians have been trying to tell to our European counterparts, but they don't care. They have this strong feeling that they are better than the Indians. No, they are not. And the Indians are in terms of our technology, they are going to be much more powerful than even less than 10 years.

Let me put to you a suggestion, which is perhaps not a very happy one, about a very bleak one. And that is that, from a certain point of view, from the perspective of one particular group of people within Europe, actually, the Ukraine war has been actually extremely helpful. And that is that if you're looking at this from the perspective of Ursula von der Leyen, I'm not suggesting that she thinks that this way, but if you were advising her, if you were on her side, you could say, well, look, the Ukraine conflict has really worked very well for you. You are at the centre. You now have a degree of control over governments, over nations within the EU, to an extent that you have never had previously. You're able to control to a great extent. Their energy policies, which used to be the prerogative of the member states,

but now you run them from the centre. You've been able to expand trade policies as well. You can also use the Ukraine conflict constantly to isolate and discredit and in some cases to organize stronger action against dissident members within the EU like Hungary, like Slovakia, which is of course now under extreme pressure. You can do this all the time. So don't end the war. the war going because it is actually in terms of the interests of the centre itself actually working to

promote your agenda. You're able to impose your narratives more effectively. You can impose block discipline more securely. You can expand your economic interference in countries more actively, you can expand your political interference in countries more actively as well. Slovakia, again, case in point. Hungary too is subjected to this kind of thing. Better, in fact, to continue the war. And if there is a defeat there and Ukraine is just defeated, well, even that outcome in some ways is better than the worst possible outcome of all. which is a negotiated settlement in which people start to go back and say,

well, was it all worth it? Because with a defeat, you could say, well, there's the Russian bear, it's on our borders, we still have to do all of these other things that we are doing, whereas if it ends in a negotiation, in a diplomatic settlement,

well, then of course people will ask, what was it all about? Why did you take us here in the first place? was it really worth it? What would you say to this? Well, this is a very rational explanation of why Roussello of Underline would be actually, to this extent, pro-war. The only weakness I find with your explanation is that

I think that you assume we're sort of underlying the people who advise them to be more wise than they actually are. But even if this is, I think what drives them is, got into this mess in 2022 on an impulse, on a moral impulse that we must resist evil. And they got into this. And after that, within four or six months, the question started to emerge, why isn't it this working, this policy working, and who is responsible? And all they are trying to do ever since, including von der Leyen and Macron,

and the various German politicians, is running away from accountability. running away from responsibility. That's my assumption that they are more petty people than you assume them to be. But if you are right, that approach is still wrong. You cannot impose centralized European governance without Paris-Berlin access. And this policy is destroying the Paris-Burlin access. As we've mentioned already in this podcast, France is right now ungovernable, and it is very likely that Germany will soon be ungovernable.

It is entirely possible that it will become ungovernable within a month if the German election results and no coalition can be formed. And in this case, that case, where do you go? In that case, all the power that Ursula von der Leyen or the entire European technocracy has is completely illusory. They don't have enforcement mechanisms. They are not the United States, which can, at a whim, take Greenland or Panama. They have nothing in their hands, just the illusion of power.

And if national leaders start turning against the center in Brussels, that they can do nothing. None of them, not the commission, not the parliament, not the European court. None of them have any power beyond what power is actively and continuously supplied to them by the member states. If the member states withhold those powers, then they have nothing. And that's That's where they are going, essentially, with the weakening of Paris and Berlin, which are bad things for Europeans, bad things. The one small silver lining is that at least the European technoprots are also weakening. They can cause less and less damage this way. For anyone who studied the EU in the late 90s and early 2000s, I remember we had to always read the literature that it,

the EU was a different kind of power. It was normative. It was a moral superpower. And there was an interesting counter argument, well, not a counter argument, but a criticism of this approach, because it sounds so wonderful. But the problem of claiming to have a moral foreign policy, as opposed to one not pursuing interest is once it would undermine its own national interest over time if you claim to pursue morality instead of national interest, but also it would become engaged in moral crusades. That is, is someone will say, well, this is the right thing to do, even though you can't achieve your objective, you'll make the situation worse, and in the process you will bury your own economy.

So it's kind of the dark side of arguing to have a foreign policy based on morality. But I just, I think this, that the decline, as you suggested, in political legitimacy, that this could restore some of the problems. Because again, you accurately pointed out that all the things that Hungary has been criticized for might be actually solutions. That is, Hungary was condemned for not taking migrants, but now, of course, the Europeans or the EU has to do

something with the migration problems. Hungary was attacked for criticizing and opposing the sanctions. Well, I think it's quite obvious that the sanctions are hurting us. I know they're hurting the Russians too, but this idea of burning down our house, hoping it will spread to Russia, it's not a very good strategy. We kept saying, you know, the war can be won and condemned Hungary for challenging this notion. And now, of course, I think everyone is coming grudgingly to the same conclusion that, okay, we're not winning, and the hundreds of thousands have died. And also the idea that if supranational institutions become too powerful, then it leaves less influence at the national level

to pursue national interest, and then it begins to hollow out what is required to keep the whole thing going. So when you say Hungary should play for Team Hungary, I think the Germans might be listening to this and thinking, well, perhaps, yeah, we haven't been pursuing our national interest. But I guess with this new legitimacy crisis, because you see this across many European governments now, surely they will be replaced by more realistic or at least less ideological governments, I would think, at least. Yeah, now, just something interesting about the business. There is, I think, especially after the century of the 20th century, and I heard that nationalistic foreign policy, which is very close to realistic foreign policy, is a danger.

Now, yes and no, anything taken too far becomes dangerous. Socialist foreign policy taken too far become the red queer, right? So liberal foreign policy taken too far gets you Afghanistan, Iraq, and the disintegration of the Western-led global order. So anything taken too far is bad, and nationalism taken too far would be bad. But if nationalism is married to common sense and much more honesty in foreign policy than we are used to in the last three or four decades, then it can work. Hungary has a Hungary first government. It has improved our relationship with our neighbors. no end. I mean, right now, we have the best relationship with all of our neighbors, except for Ukraine,

and there are a separate set of reasons for that, than we have ever had going back to the time when we were overfitting the Ottomans together. We have a better relationship with Austria, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, even Romania, than we have had in the last 150 years, certainly. and well, some of them didn't exist 150 years ago, but you get my idea. So it's a much better relationship, and it was achieved through nationalistic, but moderately nationalistic foreign policy,

realistic foreign policy, and very direct and honest communication with our neighbors. When we told them why we were doing stuff, and we tried to find ways, this is how we managed to stop mass migration crisis. It's not easy to build an entire system of fortifications along your southern border. To stop the migrants, we had to have the cooperation of the Serbians and the Croatians, and they initially didn't like the idea at all.

But on its diplomacy, realism, and helped to achieve that. Basically, my last question. Where do you think we're going at this moment? Because my own sense is that we are going to have diplomacy between the United States and Russia over the next couple of weeks. I think we've got a lot of opening moves and a lot of opening statements said by each side. Donald Trump said his thing. Vladimir Putin has said his things. But we're starting to get signals that some kind of a dialogue is going to take place.

There's going to be apparently a summit meeting between Putin and Trump at some point. They've managed to work with each other before in the past. Apparently there's a certain degree of mutual. Shall we say, empathy between them? One one shouldn't make too much of that, but it does exist. The Americans, I get the sense, really do want to see this whole conflict in Ukraine shut down. The Russians have said that for them the most important thing is security and the security of their Western border. And yes, they're holding up for some things.

But that looks to me like the basis of a compromise. Do you think we are going to get there in the end? Do you think that there will be a diplomatic process? And what role do you think Hungary itself might have? Now, that's a very big question. And I want to stress and say in advance that you obviously do not speak for the Hungary? government and I know that. But having said that, you are in Budapest.

You are aware of, you know, better sense of the sort of mood there. But Orban has spoken to Putin. There's been even some suggestions, not, I think, in Hungary itself, that Budapest could be a venue for a meeting between Putin and Trump. I don't know myself whether that would be the case. But do you think Hungary has a role? given that it has been the lone voice in Europe for so long talking about peace. And Donald Trump is known to have a lot of respect for Victor Orban.

I'm hearing a story today. I don't know whether it's true that he's actually reassured Orban today that Hungary has America's back if there are problems with the Europeans over the next couple of months going forward. But do you think that the Hungarians do have a role? After all, they have been talking to the Russians. You have maintained communications with the Russians. It's a lot to ask of a small country, but what do you think might happen? So, I don't think there's going to be a Budapest-based treaty

or even a major chapter of this dialogue in Budapest. for a pure reason, unfortunately, the Budapest memorandum, which hopefully your viewers are aware of, has played out rather badly. It's a sad, dark chapter of international low end. The dark symbolism, I think, precludes Budapest from being the location for high-level meetings. But otherwise, I think Hungary, yes, can mediate, can be a part of the peace process. we can talk to the Russians, we can talk to the Chinese, we can talk to the Americans, these are going to be the most important players.

We can also talk to Kiev and paradoxically leastable is Brussels. I mean we can't seem to find a common language with Brussels. But we can talk to Mr. Zelensky in Kiev despite our very sharp differences. That dialogue is ongoing even if it sometimes turns into sharper tones. So in that sense, Hungary can play a very very strong. important in their intermediary role. I do not think that this peace process, if it succeeds, it is going to happen. So I think that one thing is certain it's going to happen, whether or not it succeeds is a different manner. I don't think it's going to

happen primarily in Europe. I think both Moscow and Washington have an interest in excluding the Europeans as much as possible, not least for educational purposes, so to speak. Why couldn't they all these stories? in Singapore, for example. Just a suggestion. I don't see why not. There are plenty of other places, Greenland, Iceland. There are places where these negotiations could happen,

which also have traditions of conducting high-level international diplomacy. Now, in terms of what is going to happen or what kind of a solution we can expect here, I can give you an optimistic scenario and the pessimistic one. Right now, at this juncture, I don't have enough information to choose between them. Emotionally, I prefer the optimistic solution, but that's emotionally.

Donald Trump is a master negotiator, whether the liberals like this or not. It's not just business, because if you recall his last term in office, he has achieved immense success in the Middle East with the Abrahamic Accords. That is a huge achievement that nobody could even approach before.

And that, those accords gave a real chance for peace in the Middle East that unfortunately disintegrated after the terrorist attack on October the 7th. So he can conduct masterful diplomacy. I know some of the people who have created the policy papers behind their approaches to the peace plan that they might formulate. These are very smart people. They're very cold-hearted, cold-headed, level-headed railists. They understand peace through strengths. They understand pressure points. So there is hope.

As I mentioned, the Russian economy is not in an ideal situation. Include that enough is enough. If the Americans can manage to get the Chinese at least partially on board in pressuring the Russians to end the war, then there is a possibility. for a ceasefire and maybe even a long-lasting sustainable peace treaty. The key to a long-lasting sustainable peace treaty, by the way,

is not security guarantees. That is crazy what people are saying. That's just politics. The key to a sustainable peace treaty is that neither of the sides involved in the peace treaty should have an interest in violating the peace treaty. It's very difficult to get there, but that's where you need to get.

and security guarantees are just to be written in the papers and for nothing else, basically, in this world. This is the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic scenario is that Donald Trump does everything he can in the first six months of his administration. He concludes that this is not working, in which case I think that his interests are best served by extricating the United States from the conflict as fast as possible. So then the financial transfers, the military equipment transfer will cease, and Washington will simply delegate this responsibility to the Europeans. Now, why is this interest of Trump? Because his most important fight, his political legacy will not be decided on the foreign policy front.

His most important task is at home, first closing down the border and second, defeating the deep state. to radically reform the federal government. That's his most important job legacy advice. And he should not get muddied or be booked down in various foreign wars, very much including the Ukraine war. Well, thank you very much. That was my last question, and thank you very much, Zoltan, for answering it so well.

Glenn might have some more questions, but well maybe just a quick brief one because I saw an interview with Orban in which he was pointing out the role of the NGOs in Hungary and you know Donald Trump he recently suspended

all aid and it was some lack of clarity whether or not this would cover the NGOs and Orban he more or less expressed a hope that it would because these NGOs are very disruptive they don't actually do they operate under the guise of a human

rights and democracy, but they usually have very aggressive, divisive foreign policy objectives, which contribute to conflict. So, of course, this is happening at the same time as you see the NGOs trying to stoke up uprising in Slovakia and also against Serbia, against Fizzo and Vich. So I was wondering if you had in the comments on this, how do you see Hungary, will this attempt to disrupt or take out some NGOs as many countries around the world has done in the last few years? Well, it might go broke. Yes, I've studied the executive order.

It does suspend all money to every single NGO, all taxpayer money to every single NGO, including in Hungary, including in Slovak, including in Georgia, including in Serbia. So this network of influence operations will probably wither away, not maybe in three months, but I don't see Marco Rubio reinstating most of these funds. Why? Because the executive order makes it very clear what is the test for sending money through USA to any NGO. That NGO has to align its conduct with the foreign policy aims of the United States under Donald Trump.

America First, MAGA. All of these guys are liberals. These are liberals. They are not going to be able to explain how what they have been doing in the last 20, 30 years is anyway compatible with the America First foreign policy.

So most of this funding isn't returning. Some of it probably will be. Some of it will be waived pretty fast. I understand that Marco Rubio has already waived this suspension of those programs that deliver food as humanitarian relief. We can expect that these things will continue, even if in a changed way into the future.

But the liberal NGOs, well, their money streams will dry up. And to be honest with you, I think George Soros is going to get, have a lot of trouble at home and way fewer resources to spend abroad. Well, that was my last question. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Zoltan. I hope we do come to our senses in Europe and support the peace process, which is going to happen, because having a situation where the Americans say enough enough and we're walking away is actually a disaster for us, I would say, in Europe.

And it'll be humiliating enough if it's things in Europe were decided outside Europe, first time in history that that will have happened. That's all time that's just my last words. Thank you very much for all you said. Thank you for having gentlemen. Thank you for us with your viewers. And we hope you'll come again, by the way. Absolutely. Just write to me and we'll arrange it.