November 10, 2020 - 7:00am
Last month, Joe Biden sparked controversy by seeming to describe the governments of Hungary and Poland as “totalitarian”. Whether he did or didn’t is a moot point — as Peter Franklin explained — but the chances are he really will be coming for Hungary, or rather, for Viktor Orbán.
The President-elect’s interest in Hungary is no passing fad. Biden’s love affair with Hungary goes back to 1976 when he and second wife, Jill, spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton. The visit was facilitated by Biden’s close friend, Hungarian-born emigre Representative Tom Lantos: the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the United States Congress. There is more than sentimental value at stake here though.
The details of the Biden family’s business connections to Ukraine have been hotly debated, but one thing is certain: they are substantial. Hungary is presently crossing those interests via its stance on Ukraine’s security. For months Orbán has been blocking Ukraine’s NATO accession process — using Hungary’s veto on the latter as leverage in a dispute with Kiev over the welfare of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority.
Orbán’s own attitude to Ukraine’s territorial integrity worries some observers. The symbolic irredentism of Fidesz’s own rhetoric concerning the border region of Sub-Carpathia has increased markedly in the wake of Russian annexation of Crimea and the separatist struggles in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The real danger to Orbán may, however, come less from the new American President and more from members of his team. Biden is expected to appoint his campaign Foreign Policy Advisor, Anthony (‘Tony’) Blinken, to the post of either Secretary of State or White House National Security Advisor — roles Blinken had deputised during Biden’s own Vice Presidency.
Not only is Blinken half-Hungarian, on his mother Judith’s side, but Blinken’s father (Donald, as it happens) was US Ambassador in Budapest 1994-98. Donald, together with Tony’s stepmother Vera (also Hungarian) gave his name, and a substantial ‘permanent endowment’, to the Donald and Vera Blinken Open Society Archive (OSA) at Budapest’s Central European University.
OSA remained CEUs toe-hold in Budapest after Orbán’s government forced relocation of teaching activities to Vienna in 2019. Blinken Sr. remains an active emeritus member of CEU’s Board of Trustees.
Though the first European leader to endorse Trump in 2016, Orbán never got as close to the American President as he wanted — despite fevered efforts by mutual friend (and US ambassador) David Cornstien. Even so, last month Orbán described the improvement of Magyar-American relations post Obama as “a rare gift granted us by Providence and by President Donald Trump”. In September he told Reuters that he had “no plan B” in the case of a Trump defeat, “My calculation is OK. He [Trump] will win”.
Trump’s defeat clearly took both Orbán and the-Fidesz media by surprise. Although the result was called for Biden by American networks around 17:30 Central European Time, the state broadcaster M1 carried the headline ‘no result yet’ in their 7pm flagship bulletin — even as European heads of government and politicians were publishing co-ordinated congratulatory messages at the very same time. Viktor Orbán’s congratulatory message emerged pointedly late — 14 and a half hours behind his fellow European leaders.
According to Hungarian Momentum (Liberal) party leader András Fekete-Győr: “Orbán needs Trump, Hungary needs Biden!” The coming months will show if he is right.
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SubscribeI did two years with Good Judgment Project. I was never good enough to be a Super forecaster. Those that were were very, very good at evaluating very thorny questions that had limited information.
I was going to ask what their track record looked like.
Indeed. It would be useful to know if the Super forecasters were accurate in their forecasts, or just very good and plausible in writing them up, but in the event highly inaccurate.
The point of GJP, when I was a part of it, was to get to the correct prediction, as early as possible, and come correct, if you recognized that you were probably wrong, as early as possible. The probability you placed on an event occurring diminished either your credit for being right, or your “punishment” for being wrong.
So why not go all-in with certainty? The scoring is tilted toward “Don’t be wrong” – your score gets hammered almost double for being wrong than the credit you get for being right. The idea was/is to get participants to hedge, because in the real world things change, and surprises happen (Trump happened. Boris happened. Brexit happened.)
While participants were generally open with their research and their thinking, there was no incentive to share. There were also several subgroups that formed as people got together to work on a problem and discuss it amongst themselves.
The reality here is that there is little prospect of Ukraine retaking their lost territory. Their slim hope for victory always lay in forcing the Russians to retreat by inflicting heavy casualties that caused political problems for Putin and led to him abandoning his goals. In the first days of the war, that’s exactly what happened. Russia attempted a blitzkrieg style all out offensive similar to what the US did to Iraq on two occasions. That failed, but wars are rarely won or lost by the success or failure of the initial engagements. Russia sensibly changed their strategy to focus on the East and changed tactics to saturation artillery and a slow and methodical destruction that levels entire towns and leaves few assets for either side, typical Russian scorched earth warfare, a brutal yet effective approach. Their casualties slowed while Ukraine’s casualties climbed. Ukraine is now facing unsustainable casualty levels, while Russia has weathered both the sanctions and their early setbacks. Having seized most of the territory they wanted, Russia only has to hold their gains and focus on a smaller front. Ultimately, the political realties will likely prevent a permanent peace treaty, because neither Ukraine nor NATO will want to cede territory and basically concede defeat, nor would Putin hand territory back when he has no reason to do so. What we’ll get is an open ended situation like Korea where there’s no peace treaty, just a cessation of open hostilities when both sides decide there’s not enough justification for continued military losses.
Nah it can’t settle as open ended for Russia, since even with China’s backing their economy and general development is screwed for as long as they’re subject to sanctions. So there has to be a settlement. The longer the war lasts, the more Russian development falls behind the rest of the world. They need to get a settlement in the next year I’d say.
HIMARs?
In other words, the future will look like the present, just a little worse, with with more broken stuff and more dead people.
And there is American public opinion and the midterm elections on November 8 of this year. After all, who is paying the bills in Ukraine? The United States.
If the Biden administration were to press the Ukrainians to cut a deal, the Ukrainians would cut a deal.
The Administration had hoped that the war in Ukraine would induce the public would “rally around the President.” It is hard to discern a definitive rally effect in the polling data, but the Administration will do anything until the elections in November if it perceives that something might mitigate electoral losses.
Prediction: The Ukrainians will not move to cut a deal before the midterm elections. But, right after … If the Democrats get smashed in the election, then look for a deal.
Pray the midterms are a blood bath for Democrats and we can finally shed ourselves of the parasitic Ukrainians.
The real point is that we must keep sanctions in place far longer than any hostilities.
And that’s entirely achievable. As long as Russia refuses to give back Crimea, we can keep isolating Russia from the world economy. China is already having a major economic downturn, and may join Russia in the slough very soon. Ditto for authoritarian India.
This is a war very much like the Napoleonic Wars or WW2. It may take years. But in the end, for the last 500 years, when a single power tries to dominate Europe, it always ends up the loser.
Ask the Spanish. Ask the French. Ask the Germans.
And, finally, ask the Soviets.
Ukraine is Europe’s problem, let them handle it.
A cease-fire is only likely if someone finds an off ramp for our Western leaders. This war is lost by the West, for three reasons well known to all observers:
1. The economic sanctions failed. Russia is exporting even more oil than in January this year (3 million barrels a day back then, 3,7 million a day in June). It is still exporting oil even to the EU (somewhat less than a million barrels – forget about natural gas). The rouble did not collapse at all. Russia’s treasury is doing fine.
2. Miracle weapons from the West that would enable Ukrainians to reconquer their territory without a single NATO soldier and, magically, even without an escalation by Russia to WMD’s, is on the verge of superstition. This not a a soccer game guided by fairplay and under the rules of FIFA. Besides, weapons deliveries at scale are yet to be seen at the front.
3. Russia already controls more than 20 percent of the Ukrainian territory, and more importantly, controls most of the most valuable parts.
The West made a miscalculation as terrible as Putin in the opening stage of the war, by putting all their cards on winning a just war.
There will be a cease-fire somewhere before mid 2023, for no European country is willing to sustain tremendous energy prices with no outlook a something that could be called “Victory”.
They can’t even make a basic car. They’re screwed.
The war may have been over quickly if they’d killed or captured Zilinsky the first night like they’d hoped, nevertheless it was a long shot so on to plan B. Which will cost a lot more AFU and Ukrainian civilian lives. Weapons to Ukraine won’t solve it for NATO, not least because a third don’t get there. For example, a French Caesar howitzer sells for a Russian passport and an apartment there, to the French it’s €7 million wasted.
Anyway Zelinsky has now demanded €9 billion a month from the EU plus many more expensive weapons and ammo so since it’ll ultimately bankrupt them I’d expect they’d stop at nothing to get this stopped any way they can, so maybe we can expect to see some false flag attack from the EU especially since London will be Russias first target.
Just replace Zelensky with Churchill and read what you wrote.
Yes, maybe killing Churchill would allow Halifax faction to prevail.
And negotiate some sort of peace with Hitler.
Would it hold, would it be sensible long term?
If Ukraine wants to fight, 9 billions per month is not much for the West.
People like you would surrender to Stalin or Hitler at first opportunity.
9 billion a month isn’t much for the west? You’re kidding.
We are travelling at rocketspeed into a polycrisis the likes of which the world has never seen. Hundreds of millions of innocent people are going to starve and millions will die. There will be rioting in the streets, massive protests (Sri Lanka is just the start) and poverty that is off the scale.
And that is just for starters.
The 9 billion a month is just the down payment to keep this proxy war going. The true cost is already in the trillions.
€9 billion isn’t much! No wonder the the west is doomed.
I was commenting on what was the Russian plan, since the writers either assume Russia will use a nuclear weapon or somebody will, to make it look like Russia. I don’t know what you’re rabbiting on about about Halifax,,replacing Churchill,, etc,etc. I was in Iraq and that was a bloody disaster as well so i wouldn’t put too much faith in NATOs abilities.
My feelings on Zelinsky are he’s a criminal, surrounded by them and supported by them. The quicker that so called country is denazified and demilitarised the better.
The idiot globalists may very well push Putin to a corner where he has to use nukes, then like anyone who supports Ukraine, we all will seem stupid.
Shivering at home, unable to afford to turn on the heating – a price well worth paying for a spot of, Ukrainian, flag waving, virtue-signalling? Total clown world. Fortunately, actions have consequences, and those consequences will be felt by the ‘normies’ who mindlessly went along with this garbage: you reap what you sow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLhSp0XgWZU&t=197s
Ukraine is a corrupt country and we should not be supporting or assisting them. Zelensky is a puppet to the EU and American globalists.