08 Jul Defence dilemmas and development of Hungary from Wales to Warsaw
The Russian aggression in Ukraine raised Hungary’s interest on defence issues. The country had a long-term obligation to deal with its defence sector. Not only there was no substantial defence procurement in the last decade, since the country decided to buy the JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets, but the Hungarian defence budget had shrunk under the 1% threshold of the country’s GDP. The 40% decrease of the budget broke every record even in the region when compared to Slovakia’s 25 % or the Czech Republic’s 35% decrease prior to 2014, and made the country a tail ender within the whole Alliance.
Politics behind the Wales Commitments
Well aware of its imperfections, Hungary arrived to Wales with meaningful, but achievable commitments.
Beside of this package, the Hungarian delegation highlighted numerous facts about the country’s involvement in NATO. Since Hungary joined NATO, the country has followed an active policy in participating in international missions, trying to meet its commitments of keeping 1000 soldiers in missions continuously. The defence ministry also emphasized, that although the budget itself was low, the country only spent 40% of its budget on personnel costs, however. later this very fact later became the main obstacle for Hungary to fully meet its Wales commitments. The country managed to avoid heavy criticism, and after the summit Prime Minister Orbán showed increased interest in the topic – for the first time in his four-year term in office.
During and following the Summit he has emphasized that finally the Alliance was ready to translate its abstract security guarantees into practicalities. He also highlighted that Hungary’s security could be only guaranteed within NATO, and although the Alliance was providing us these security guarantees, we were not taking our share.
Hungary more or less met its commitments made in Wales, with the exception of the budgetary ones (as described later in this paper), however, there was a secondary impetus behind the political interest: the government was looking for a quick fix for the US-Hungarian relations.
The bilateral relations seriously deteriorated in October 2014, due to media information on a travel-ban imposed by the United Stated on high-level Hungarian officials, allegedly involved in corruption. The government reacted vehemently and with little diplomatic tact. Foreign policy analysts have seen Hungary’s commitment to support the armed forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq as one of the key elements to support the normalisation of the US-Hungarian bilateral relations. We have to note that economic interests were also behind the decision. Hungarian oil company MOL invested heavily in oil exploitation, therefore bilateral relations with the regional government were extremely good. Currently there are 110 Hungarian soldiers in Iraq, providing force protection for the international training mission and giving training as well.
Commitments and delivery
Hungary already made commitments in Wales to participate in NATO exercises aimed to highlight solidarity with the most effected Eastern flank countries. In Fall 2014, 140 members of the 5th Infantry Brigade participated in the Iron Sword exercise in Lithuania and stayed on to form both a joint NATO battalion and a task force consisting of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers. In 2015 Hungarian troops participated among others in the Saber Junction, Trident, Javelin and Trident Juncture exercises.
Budapest supported the creation of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force as an important element of the NATO Response Force (NRF). Hungary’s commitment – similar to Slovakia’s bid – to NRF reform remained questioned following Wales, as the request to setup the NFIU (NATO Force Integration Unit) in Székesfehérvár came only in February 2015, meaning that it will be fully operational only after the Warsaw Summit. The country also had a limited commitment contributing to MNC NE Szeczin, where only 3 staff officers were delegated. On the other hand, Hungary is participating in the NRF on a company level, and the number of soldiers delegated in NRF can reach 300 people.
Hungary made a commitment to develop and increase the capacity of the Pápa Air Base, which is currently hosting the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) of the NATO. The Hungarian pledge of 65 million EUR supported the previous NATO funded developments.
Related to the crises in Ukraine, Hungary offered to provide treatment for seriously injured Ukrainian servicemen. By now more than 20 Ukrainian soldiers had been treated in Budapest, but in January 2016 representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade offered similar treatment for an additional 20 wounded soldiers. Hungary also pledged 100,000 euros to strengthen cyber defence.
Being deeply involved for years in the ISAF mission, by leading a PRT, it was obvious that Hungary will also provide support in the transitional period in Afghanistan. In the framework of Resolute Support, Hungary offered the participation of 100 soldiers, while also made a commitment to provide annually 500.000 EUR international development aid between 2015 and 2017. Currently there are 84 soldiers participating in the mission. Recently Hungary, as part of the pre-Summit reviews and commitment, reaffirmed its commitment to continue its financial and military support in the upcoming years.
Getting closer to the Warsaw Summit, Budapest can also refer to other developments. One example is the Hungarian-lead Baltic Air Policing Mission. Hungarian Air Force stationed 80 soldiers and four JAS-39 Gripen fighter aircrafts in the Baltics from September 2015 for four months, and Budapest has already made commitments to renew this mission in 2019.
When measuring Hungary’s commitments, one has to note that Hungary has the ambition and capability to deploy 1000 troops in international missions. With the ongoing Visegrad Battle Group (450), the presence in KFOR (361), the presence in Iraq (110) mostly in Afghanistan (84) and the recently concluded Baltic Air Policing Mission (80), while also contributing to other international missions in smaller numbers, there is little chance to further increase Hungarian commitments. Increasing Hungarian contribution to the East would require raising the ambitions themselves. In this regard, not only further modernization programs should be launched, but the personnel of the armed forces should be increased. By the end of the mandate of the Battle Group, flexibility has grown once again, and Hungarian Foreign Minister already announced in Jurmala that Visegrád Group will be sending a contingent of soldiers (150 soldiers by each country) to the Baltic in three-month shifts beginning in 2017, within the framework of measures aimed at increasing NATO’s presence in the region.
Meanwhile, the migration crisis has resulted in the mobilization of all Armed Forces units in border protection operations, which decreases the chance of Hungary taking any further commitments.
The migration crises brought other changes as well, especially in the politicial priorities, changing the threat perception of the broader public. According to high level Hungarian officials: while we are very much aware of the nature of threat coming for the east, and we have an experience how to deal with it, we believe the nature of threat coming from the South is much more complex, long-term and we don’t have the full confidence how to handle them.
By now securing the southern flank become the clear priority of Hungary, but as political leadership of the country stated several times, we are aware moral responsibility and we will meet our commitments to the east as well.
Budgetary issues
The Hungarian delegation arrived to Newport with a governmental decree already approved in 2012 on defence spending. The decree stated that the Hungarian defence budget remains at the same level until 2015, and rise by 0.1% of the GDP between 2016 and 2022, when it was supposed to reach 1.39% of the GDP (although the 1.39 % target corresponds to a lower pace of growth of the budget than the planned 0.1% level). However, the implementation of previous governmental decrees such as the one from 1997, which promised an increase to 1.81% of GDP by 2001, suggests that it is much harder to maintain defence spending than to reach this goal for a single year. The delegation also referred to the limitations on government deficit and debt imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact of the EU as well as the fact that the problem was widespread in Europe and needed to be dealt systematically with the support of Brussels.
Hungary met its national and Wales commitments on budget increase, but this raise covered only the salary increases to maintain professional staff and reverse the trend of problematic retention rate. The argument of putting the priority to personnel, while communicating higher than expected GDP growth, questions the real political willingness of the government to improve the quality of the armed forces and suggests that political leadership would like to meet minimal requirements.
There is no doubt that personnel questions are the most burning ones. There are about 5000 soldiers missing from the system, and recent efforts to speed up recruiting failed. The units capable to participate in international missions are facing serious burn-out syndrome, burned out, and there is a growing number of quitters in the elite forces. In jobs requiring special skills competitive in the labour market, such as the technical staff of the fighter jets, the pressure of the market is even bigger. Salary level is multiple in the private sphere, and it is questionable if the governmental program is sufficient to keep these trained people in the army.
While salaries were consuming the additional financial sources, fully in 2014 and 2015 and partially in 2016, we can see meaningful amount of money in the 2017 budget for procurements. Unfortunately, large sum of this amount will be eaten up by the Gripen lease, and the replacement of a jet lost in an accident in the Czech Republic. Only about 90 million EUR will be available for procurements, and these procurements will focus on the needs of the HDF 2nd Special Forces Regiment and the border protection units.
Heading to the Warsaw Summit the government announced to extend its budgetary commitments and give a long-term political guarantee, by raising the defence budget of Hungary to 1,79% of the GDP by 2026. Meanwhile the commitments made in Newport on spending 20% on procurement should be met by 2019. However this is still a distant goal having in mind that the defence budget will be only 0,94% of the GDP even in 2017.
By the lack of meaningful developments since the Wales Summit, Hungary has become the only V4 and one of the few NATO member states which have not improved significantly its defence capabilities. None of the promised procurements took place, and with the introduction of the modernization of 5 Mi-17 helicopters by Russia, Hungary remains the only country in the region which aims to operate solely Russian helicopters in its Air Force.
Officials often explain the slow pace developments, arguing that the absorption capacity is limited, and the ministry doesn’t have the personnel to run multiple procurements simultaneously. Unfortunately, this excuse is not valid for the period of 2014-2017, on the other hand it can be a problem on the longer run.
Position on Enlargement
Hungary has been openly arguing in favour of the enlargement process. At the recent Budapest Security Conference, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called the Georgian and Macedonian NATO memberships an absolute necessity. As the foreign minister often emphasizes, the security of the Western Balkans could be only guaranteed through its integration to the euro-atlantic structures. Therefore Hungary has always supported the integration process of these countries and frequently took the role of being the NATO contact –point embassy. Budapest supported the integration process of Montenegro from the very beginning.
Szijjártó also emphasized that not being a NATO member has significantly hindered the Macedonian development.
Conclusion
Hungary prepared well for the Summit. Although Polish and Romanian demands on security guarantees for the eastern flank are going way beyond Hungarian interests, Budapest made sure that nobody can blame the country for the lack of solidarity. The weakest point remains capability development, but the budgetary commitments can balance and silence critical voices.
This paper was originally published in Slovak in the Zahraničná politika: Samit NATO vo Varšave by the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA). Fort he original version and further studies on the NATO Summit please click here.
