As much as I hate neoliberalism, I don't think that's the cause of this particular EU bureaucratic clusterfuck.
Did you even read the article...? The cash flow being referred to is the distribution of collective EU funds to member states...not some individualistic endeavor, or a business venture with privatized profits and socialized losses.
There's a difference between a consistent gradual decline, and rapidly plummeting to a Belarusian standard of living - which would be a likely prerequisite for even the chance that a weakened Hungary could ever become a vassal state of Putin's Russia.
Crtl+a, Del
Of the all the responses that don't even really attempt to answer my actual question (political rationale for wanting Hungary to remain), this is by far, my favorite.
B- work, but grading on this post's curve bumps it up to A+.
I don't buy that argument, at all.
Being a vassal of Putin would require Hungary"s standard of living to drop so dramatically, that even Orban couldn't get reelected.
And, if their standard of living did manage to drop that much while retaining Orban, there'd be even less reason to want to keep them within the EU.
It's almost as if the UK made a gigantic mistake by exiting itself from the EU.
Not that British influence could unfuck Hungarian politics, but it would have at least given them a larger degree of influence in the outcome.
Setting aside the legal issues around pushing Hungary out of the EU, I don't really understand the political value of them being allowed to remain - except maybe that forcing them out would upset Poland.
At least with Turkey and NATO, I understand the geostrategic importance e.g. Montreux Convention, forward operating bases, etc.
This isn't me saying there isn't a valid, or even vital, rationale for needing to keep Hungary in the EU, just me asking for someone knowledgeable to provide me with one.
To be extra clear, I'm not asking for answers on the legal path, or lack therefof, to involuntarily remove an EU member state, just the political rationale for NOT wanting Hungary kicked out, or suspended
I'm not saying that is how things should be, I'm talking about how they actually are.
That doesn't mean I endorse, or support, the status quo. Just that I recognize what it is, and the implications that has on international relations.
You all need to remove your sense of morality from foreign policy calculations made by any government. It's about power, always about power. You may personally view one nation's values as better and therefore their ideas of power more moral, but still, it's about power.
For Australia specifically, they are reliant on the US Naval power projection for their conception of Australian national security, which is why even their new Labor government is still moving ahead with AUKUS. It why Australia has always sent their troops to fight in America's wars (post-WW2), rightly or wrongly.
Even after Vietnam was so bad for Australia that they revamped their entire military to become a "defensive" force and not an explicitly expeditionary one, they still fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those were all chips put into the American security pot, that they're hoping to be able to call in when they need it.
Those reasons, and more, are why I'm confident that even with Trump, it would take something so drastic and catastrophic to change their calculations, that I don't want to even try and imagine what that would be. Even if I'm sure Trump could manage to cause whatever catalyst that would be necessary. Still, it wouldn't just be his reelection. It would be something so much worse.
Uh...not quite. You skipped the step where they hit sudo rm -rf /* on the drive that, amongst other critical items, also contained the world_order.txt config file.