The rivalries of the various Eastern European peoples go back centuries upon centuries. To adequately understand why Hungary now has testy relations with Ukraine would, at minimum require returning to before WWI and the days of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Ten to twelve paragraphs will not get that job done. Suffice it to say that a sizable minority of ethnic Hungarians – more than 150,000 – reside within Ukraine. Many have pursued duel citizenship even though it violates Ukrainian law. Their native tongue is Hungarian, which they insist their children should be permitted to be taught in, lest they lose the foundations of their ethnic identity. Such sensitivities and other cross-border issues make for tensions ripe to be manipulated in service to nationalist political agendas.
From his arrival on the international scene with nothing but, first handlers futilely trying to keep his worst under wraps, then the guff that came when he was eventually left to his own devices, Trump has offered seasoned strong men around the globe a soft target to take full advantage of. Enamored by the imagery of world leaders coming to DC to pay him homage, Trump’s objectives for face-to-faces with a plethora of previously persona non gratas have seemed little more than photo ops designed to simply propagate the idea he was actually doing something. Intentions on the other side have been a bit more focused and most often yielded desired results, none more than Hungarian aims toward Ukraine.
Within the loathsome history of The Holocaust perhaps no subplot stirs anger in one’s soul more than the destruction of Hungary’s Jews. By mid-1944, with Germany’s fate sealed by its defeat in Stalingrad, Hungary’s government decided that maybe it had backed the wrong horse when it fell in with the Axis powers and sought distance from the alliance. Hitler wasn’t having it and invaded Hungary to ensure its obedience. Within just several months Hungary’s Jewish population was annihilated with the methodical efficiency Adolph Eichmann would later be hunted worldwide for. More than 550,000 perished in an operation that had no chance of succeeding without the full servility of the native infrastructure. An indelible stain on the country.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is as experienced and savvy a European politician as one will find. Since his election in 2010, he has also near fully transformed into an autocrat with ever lessening tolerance for constitutional restraints and a burgeoning docket of corruption allegations. Perhaps more odious has been Orban’s “double game” of pursuing close ties with Israel’s Netanyahu even as he plays to a burgeoning bloc of right-wing anti-semites, going so far as to openly question history’s emphatic verdict of Hungary’s Holocaust complicity. In short, just the type of “great friend” Trump wants at a podium several feet away while he tells most Americans how awful they are.
When adults were still allowed into the West Wing, no effort was spared to make certain Orbán would never get near the White House. All understood nothing good could come of it. But as McMaster and Mattis and most any other counselor with the national interest in mind ran for their lives – or at least reputations – the Pompeos and Millers and Mulvaneys took charge of Trump’s itinerary…. and Orbán suited them just fine. By May of this year he received the coveted invite, and proceeded to DC with a focused agenda pertaining to the discrediting of Ukraine’s incoming government.
It’s a mystery why anyone would be shocked that Trump would embrace any or all nonsensically dangerous conspiracy theories for explaining events he has never mustered the ambition to study factual sources about. After all, during the 2016 campaign he held the sinister Alex Jones close, and was never shy of, say, baselessly accusing a primary opponent’s father of helping to kill JFK, or giving comfort to any and all internet fever dreams about the Clintons.
How does this impact foreign policy, in Ukraine for example? Start with a base of macro-assumptions such as NATO allies are moochers, always looking to duck their fair share, and the image of immigrant hordes storming civilization as hapless libs do nothing. Throw in a phone call with Putin, who relentlessly pounds the narrative of Ukraine as an ultra- corrupt failed state. Add to that whatever wild rumors or quarter-truths an Iago-like lackey, say a Guiliani or Miller, may hiss into his ear, and voila!…. our current decision-making process.
Last May, as Viktor Orbán made his way for his photo-op, this was the chaotic prism Trump was looking through. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a foreign service stalwart, was already targeted for termination for not sufficiently resembling US Ambassador to Hungary, David Cornstein, a former jeweler and virulent Trumpie, who enthusiastically coddled Orban even as he moved steadily toward authoritarianism. Conversely, Yovanovitch had relentlessly pressured Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to address the corruption that had become endemic before reformist Volodymyr Zelensky swept into office.
Since 2017 Orban had intensified efforts to make Ukraine a straw man for his ultra-nationalism, railing at a mandate ethnic Hungarian middle and high school kids in Ukraine – Ukrainian citizens – be taught exclusively in the native tongue. Hungary aggressively opposed Ukrainian membership in NATO, and was accused of promoting illegal duel citizenships for ethnic Hungarians within Ukraine. On most all things Ukraine, Orban moved in lockstep with Putin, which was surely conveyed when he sat down with our feckless anti-statesman.
So it now appears last May the President, ever resistant to any sort of “deep state” policy briefings that reflected established US policy and common US-European interests, near solely relied on, first a lengthy telephone call with Putin, and then a White House meeting with Orban to fully poison his view of Ukraine and it’s resistance to Russian incursions. Meanwhile, America had already, with full bi-partisan Capitol Hill support, pledged more than $400 million in military aid to assist Ukraine’s fight against Russian hegemony. Although it seems clear neither of the autocrats suggested relegating Ukraine to merely a platform in service to Trump’s vile domestic political schemes, they succeeded in fully discrediting the country and its cause, convincing their vapid audience to view providing any US resources as far from the done deal everyone else in his government assumed it was. The sad sack plot to transform the aid package into a quid pro quo for extortion soon followed.
What’s so stunning about Trump’s disgusting odyssey with Ukraine, which has ended up in a basement House hearing room, a procession of witnesses fully connecting the dots of impeachable idiocy, is the certainty its far more rule than aberration. Autocrats everywhere, from China to North Korea, Poland to Russia, Turkey to Egypt understand orange chum is in the water. America is there for the fleecing, get in front of Trump while you can…… Another shade of ruin. BC