Rising Tensions with Russia Prove Hungary Is Right to Pursue Peace

By Rafael Pinto Borges

At no point in recent decades was Europe’s security in greater peril. On September 9th, Russian drones strayed into Polish airspace.  Days later, Romanian fighters were also sent to watch over a Russian kamikaze UAV that had entered the country’s airspace.

In the Polish case, fighter jets had to be scrambled to intercept them. Warsaw’s response was to invoke Article 4 of the NATO Treaty,  summoning consultations on the grounds of imminent danger. Such moves make plain how precarious Europe’s situation has become: the continent, recklessly sleepwalking towards military escalation since 2022, now finds itself only a hair’s breadth away from escalation with the world’s main nuclear power.

The path ahead is clear. Either Europe rediscovers the logic of diplomacy, as stubbornly and solitarily argued by Hungary, or it condemns itself to catastrophe. And yet, amid all the grandstanding in Brussels, only Budapest seems willing to voice this most basic truth.

A Drift Toward Disaster

Poland’s decision to trigger Article 4 marks one of the gravest moments since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Indeed, it is one of the most dramatic moments in NATO’s history ever since the alliance was created, back in 1949. The clause does not, like Article 5, demand collective defense, but it does signal the gravity of the episode: after all, sovereign Polish territory was indeed penetrated by Russian military aircraft, even if— thankfully— no significant destruction or victims have resulted from the incident. In today’s fevered atmosphere, it may only take one spark — a drone crash, a border incident, a miscommunication — to transform a crisis into a war of potentially unspeakable consequences.

Romania, too, feels the tremors. The Black Sea, once peripheric in European politics, is now an arena of conflict, where Russian forces probe and NATO assets shadow their movements. Each drone intrusion deepens the sense of vulnerability in Bucharest, Warsaw, and beyond. The rhetoric of “red lines” and “unprovoked aggression” fills the airwaves, even as no Western leader dares to admit that it is precisely this rhetoric — maximalist, uncompromising, reckless — that has brought us here.

Hungary’s Lonely Realism

From the beginning of this war, Hungary has pursued a course that Brussels denounced as betrayal, but which history now reveals as prudence. The country has been mocked, slandered, and isolated. Yet his argument has never wavered: Russia is not Nazi Germany, bent on global conquest, but a great power acting from a place of fear, pride, and wounded interest. Such a power cannot be crushed; it must, instead, be engaged.

Every drone that drifts across NATO’s borders vindicates this view. Every scramble of jets reminds us how close Europe stands to catastrophe. Budapest’s insistence on peace is not naivety — it is the clearest recognition of reality available in our politics today.

The Peril of Escalation

Consider what a true clash would mean. Were a Russian drone to strike a Polish village, killing civilians, could Warsaw refrain from retaliation? If it retaliated, could Moscow fail to respond? And if Russia responded, could NATO truly hold back from invoking Article 5? At that point, the conflict ceases to be a proxy war. It becomes a direct war between NATO and Russia, with all the horrors of mutual annihilation hanging over the world. Whatever difficulty Europe faces today, from immigration to rising debts, they would all amount to nothing if the continent was to face full-blown, conventional — and, in all likelihood, nuclear — conflict against Moscow. There would be no recovery from such a blow.

This is not speculation. It is the logic of escalation, a logic every serious strategist from Clausewitz to Kennan would have recognized. Yet in today’s Europe, those who point out such realities are dismissed as defeatists. The so-called “party of war” remains dominant, intoxicated by the fantasy that NATO could push Russia to surrender its most fundamental interests. As every development has shown since then, whether on the political, military, or economic fronts, this was always insane.

Peace as Strength

Hungary offers an alternative vision. Peace is not surrender. It is strategy. By seeking to end the war before it engulfs the continent, Prime Minister Orbán is defending not Moscow’s interests, but Europe’s very survival. His position recognizes that Russia cannot be expelled from Europe, just as Europe cannot exist without Russia. Geography is destiny. A stable, prosperous continent requires coexistence, not eternal war. Thankfully, President Trump’s return to the White House has meant that the United States, too, has come to realize this. Whether it be Germany or France, it is now essential that other realist, patriotic forces rise to power in order to put an end to this mindless, increasingly dangerous conflict.

The alternative is ruin. Already, sanctions have gutted European industry while leaving Moscow resilient. Poland and the Baltics find themselves militarized frontier zones, living in constant fear of the next provocation. To imagine that such a situation can endure indefinitely without explosion is to indulge in the most childish wishful thinking.

Toward a New Settlement

If Hungary is right — and events prove that it is — then Europe must abandon the illusions still harbored by the likes of Macron, Merz, and von der Leyen. It must follow Budapest’s and Washington’s advice and return to diplomacy. A new settlement is required, one that guarantees both Ukraine’s continued existence as a buffer state between the European Union and Russia, and comprehends Moscow’s insecurities. A new settlement must not seek to isolate the Russians, further throwing them to China’s embrace; it should draw Russia closer to Europe, make it a part of the continent’s common prosperity, and establish a win-win relationship with what will always be a powerful, proud, and security-conscious neighbor. The West once possessed such wisdom: think of Bismarck, or de Gaulle dreaming of a “Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.” Today, only Budapest seems to remember the lessons of these great men.

The drone strikes over Poland and Romania are warnings, written in fire across the night sky. Europe ignores them at its peril. Hungary’s lonely voice for peace is still disdained by Europe’s blind political class. But unless it is heeded, we shall one day look back on these weeks not as moments of alarm, but as the last calm before the storm.

Rafael Pinto Borges is a foreign affairs expert with Portugal’s CHEGA party and the national-conservative think tank, Nova Portugalidade.

Featured Image: Pixabay

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