Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
From a historical perspective, appeasement of tyrannical regimes ended, without exceptions, in personal, national, regional, or global catastrophes. From the expansions of the antediluvian Egyptian and Persian Empires, through the global domination of ancient Rome, the violent confrontations of the Middle Ages as well as the Napoleonic Wars, to the two World Wars of the 20th century, the tactics of engaging in benign diplomatic compromises without a comprehensive strategy of dealing with the core problems of intolerable ambitions by a person or a nation, inevitably resulted in unmitigated violent anarchies.
Presently, NATO and the European Union have to deal with a mini-tyrant among their midst by the name of Viktor Orban, the long-serving Prime Minister of Hungary. Predictably, the leaders of the European Union and successive presidents of the United States of America have made the same Chamberlain’s mistake with Viktor Orban as the then British Prime Minister was guilty of at his meeting with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, in 1938. In the so-called Munich Agreement, in exchange for Hitler’s promise that if Chamberlain agrees to cede a part of the then Czechoslovakia the so-called Sudetenland to Germany, Nazi Germany shall make no further demands for land in the European continent. Returning to London, the British Prime Minister declared triumphantly: “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time…Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Of course, the rest is history.
Fast forward to the lasting miserable political, economic, social and moral conditions of Hungary under its Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Politically, Hungary has become an unabashedly ethno-fascist tyrannical country without a meaningful opposition. All the media – the printed press, the electronic television stations as well as the overwhelming numbers of social media – are owned and controlled by Viktor Orban and his lackeys, which incessantly spew debilitating regime propaganda. The economy has only few privileged owners, namely, Viktor Orban’s Strohman Lorinc Meszaros, Viktor Orban’s extended family, his closest associates and their Russian and Chinese buddies. Socially, most Hungarians exist in the tyrant’s created vacuum of lies believing that their country is a democracy. In reality, they vegetate within an evil regime that is irredeemably corrupt to its core and have stolen and embezzled everything movable as well as even immovable properties across Hungary. While depicting himself as the only world champion of peace in Europe, under the guise of protecting the Hungarian people from the consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Viktor Orban added to his absolute powers the permanent condition of state of emergency – just to be sure that no one would challenge his tyranny.
Internationally, don’t be mistaken. Viktor Orban has never been a “Friend of the United States of America.” To wit, he has fought against the European Union as well as the United States of America tooth and nail to impose onerous sanctions on the aggressor Russian Federation claiming that “without the latter’s gas and oil deliveries Europe would face political upheavals and economic ruin,” as if the West and not Russia were the culprit. According to Dr. Andras Simonyi, former Ambassador of Hungary to the United States of America and Hungary’s first NATO Ambassador, currently a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center in Washington DC, Viktor Orban’s ranting about “American Imperialism” is akin to the derogatory terms used by the Soviet and like minded Communists during the Cold War. Elaborating on his statement, Viktor Orban told his audience: “Although no one knows it, 2013 was one of the most important years in recent history. That was the year when Americans began fracking.” Moreover, Viktor Orban reasoned that the Americans now have greater energy independence that they intend to use as a foreign policy weapon. The United States has been trying to force Europe into dependence on American energy for years now. The fact that Americans accuse others of doing the same thing should not lead anyone astray. Economic imperialism explains why the United States is currently pressuring European governments to implement sanctions against Russia. Thus spoke a pro-American and pro-European leader of a member state. Also that much for Tucker Carlson’s and Rod Dreher’s incompetent and corrupt interpretations of Viktor Orban’s exemplary “Illiberalism.” Rejecting diversification and wholly supporting dependence on Russian energy as a clever accomplice to Russia’s attempts at dividing the European Union and NATO, is Viktor Orban’s mission.
The invitation to Viktor Orban to speak at the upcoming CPAC meeting in Dallas, Texas, on August 4, 2022, is a huge mistake. There is no good reason to be associated with Orban’s ideology or his world view. Considering the additional fact that in his most recent speech in Romania, he harked back to the eternal ethno-chauvinistic and anti-Semitic slogans of past Hungarian politicians by evilishly meditating on the purity of the Hungarian blood, Viktor Orban sunk to the rhetorical foundations of the ugly and catestrophic history of national socialism.
Indeed, Viktor Orban’s tyrannical “Illiberalism” is highly destructive for NATO as well as the European Union. His success and the inability of any serious opposition to emerge in Hungary is mainly due to the fact that the majority of Hungarians yearn for an authentical strongman who at least verbally is the propagandist of Hungarian independence and the champion of the people in the middle of a global economic crisis and galloping inflation. Clearly, Viktor Orban’s appeal is more emotional than rational. Yet, emotions can lead more frequently than not to destructive policies. For all these reasons, Viktor Orban cannot be stopped domestically. Therefore, for the sake of the future of NATO and the European Union they collectively must marshall their powers to facilitate the timely demise of the newest tyrant of the Free World.