Part I — Situation overview

At the beginning of August 2026 the American defence ministry made public that the consultations with the allies on the review of the European force posture — the so-called Europe Posture Review — are already taking place. The information was reported by Euractiv, and its substance is not the fact of the review but the timing: the process had until now been regarded as being in a preparatory phase, whereas it has now emerged that the phase of allied consultation has begun. This is procedural news, and it is therefore more important than the usual ‘American withdrawal’ type of speculation: if the consultation is running, then the national positions have to be ready now, not after the announcement of the decision.

The news takes its place alongside two other developments. According to EUobserver’s report, Romania is defending a section of NATO’s eastern flank without a functioning government and without an adopted budget. Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022 more than eighty drones have entered Romanian airspace, and by now such an event occurs weekly. At the weekend Romanian fighter jets shot down three drones in three days. The article also quotes the remark of a Romanian analyst to the effect that it is not ideal if cheap drones are destroyed with missiles costing half a million euros. To this is added Visegrad Insight’s analysis of the structure of defence financing in Central Europe: Poland plans to channel almost one third of the EU SAFE credit facility — 150 billion euros in total — into its own defence industry. And the Warsaw financial community is examining how a lasting financing structure can be built out of this for dual-use technology companies. The main finding of the analysis is that the bottleneck is not capital but predictable demand: the private investor only enters if there is a concrete state or reliable civilian buyer.

By MIAK’s reading, Hungary’s room for manoeuvre in this situation lies not in the public declaration but in the negotiating input — and that is not available today. For the Hungarian position to ask for or undertake anything, it would first be necessary to know precisely for which critical supporting capabilities domestic and regional defence planning is built exclusively on American equipment in such a way that there is no domestic or European alternative. No such list exists publicly. Without it the Hungarian position necessarily moves in generalities, while at the negotiating table the other member states will be talking about concrete capabilities and figures. This is a rare moment in defence policy: the question is not what we think about the alliance, but whether we have carried out our own inventory.

Part II — Literature foundation

Before turning to MIAK’s proposals it is worth setting out the conceptual frame in which the risk of planning built on the capabilities of other countries can be formulated. Chapters XII and XIII of The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (Florentine political thinker and secretary of state, one of the founders of modern state theory) distinguish four types of armed force: one’s own, mercenary, auxiliary and a mixture of these. The author regards the auxiliary troop — that is, help provided by another power with its own equipment — as the most dangerous: in the event of defeat the one who called them in is ruined, and in the event of victory becomes dependent on them. The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Chinese commander and strategist, author of the military treatise written around the fifth century BC) adds the side of self-knowledge: by its claim, he who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles — the lack of self-knowledge is at least as great a risk as the lack of knowledge of the opponent. And the European Commission’s report 2026 European Macroeconomic Report gives the economic frame: its fourth chapter examines what macroeconomic effect an increase in defence spending has, and under what conditions it remains compatible with budgetary sustainability. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

📖 Source: Niccolò Machiavelli: A fejedelem (The Prince); Sun Tzu: A háború művészete (The Art of War); European Commission: 2026 European Macroeconomic Report

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. The first is the production of a missing document, the second a legislative step, and the third the conversion of an existing commitment into figures.

3.1 Enabler exposure list — the inventory of critical supporting capabilities (within 90 days)

The most important element of the negotiating input is a list that names item by item those critical supporting — in the jargon enabler — capabilities for which the Hungarian and the regional defence plan currently rests entirely on allied, typically American equipment. This includes air-to-air refuelling, strategic airlift, reconnaissance and surveillance capability, ballistic missile defence, and the stockpiling of precision munitions. MIAK proposes that this list should be produced within ninety days and should be made public in summary form, without classified details. Beside every item three columns should appear: whether there is a European alternative, how much it costs, and how long it takes to stand up. This proposal is the direct content of the HV12 geostrategic defence planning and the HV9 independent defence capability programme points. The value of the document lies not in giving a solution but in making the gap quantified and negotiable — in Sun Tzu’s frame (see 6.4.2) this is the basic task of self-knowledge, without which every further decision is taken blind.

3.2 A multi-annual defence spending path fixed in law (by the 2027 budget cycle)

The increase in defence spending is today the subject of an annual budget bargain, and it is therefore unpredictable both for the allies and for the domestic supplier community. MIAK proposes that by the start of the 2027 budget cycle a multi-annual spending path should be put into law which fixes the annual level of defence spending as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) and attaches a measurable capability target to every year. The legal form matters here: the fixing of a multi-annual spending path is a matter of legislation, that is, within the competence of Parliament; the Government submits the proposal and regulates the details of implementation by decree. Programme point HV5 also gives concrete figures for this: raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027 and to 3.5 per cent by 2030, in such a way that at least 40 per cent of the increment is productive investment — research and development, domestic manufacturing, infrastructure — and not imports. This constraint is not economic-policy ornamentation: the European Commission’s report (see 6.4.3) shows precisely that the macroeconomic effect of the growth of defence spending depends decisively on how large the import content is and how much goes to domestic investment.

3.3 Quantification of the alliance credibility audit (from the 2027 annual report)

Programme point KP23 prescribes an annual alliance credibility audit. MIAK proposes that from the 2027 report onwards this should not be a narrative self-assessment but should contain four figures: the ratio of capability targets undertaken to those delivered, the average lead time of procurement procedures, the replenishment level of critical stocks, and the share of participation in joint European procurement relative to the total procurement value. The four figures together fit onto a few pages a year, and they measure precisely what the allies will invoke at the force realignment negotiation. The proposal is the extension of the HV2 defence spending transparency programme point to the alliance dimension, and for MIAK this is not transparency aesthetics: alliance credibility consists of figures, not of declarations.

The three proposals can be strung onto a single principle: the value of alliance membership depends on how much the country can show independently. Machiavelli’s argument (see 6.4.1) does not speak against the alliance — today’s alliance systems are not mercenary armies, and the North Atlantic Treaty creates mutual obligations — but is about the fact that a defence built on someone else’s equipment also carries away the freedom of decision. The Hungarian objective is therefore not the replacement of the alliance, but that the Hungarian contribution should be measurable and the Hungarian exposure known.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Defence The capability list gives a negotiable position and shows for which gap funding has to be found first The summarised publicity of the gaps gives out strategic information, so the level of detail has to be chosen carefully
Economy The multi-annual spending path creates predictable demand for which the domestic and the Central European supplier community can plan A path fixed in law is rigid: it becomes an obligation to be met even in an economic downturn
Foreign policy The quantified credibility audit strengthens the Hungarian negotiating position, because it shows both commitment and delivery If delivery falls short of the commitment, the public audit documents that too

The main question to be weighed is stretched between publicity and strategic caution. Showing capability gaps is valuable information for the adversary too — which is why MIAK proposes the principle of ‘classification minimalism’ applied also in the programme point on the transparency of defence spending: public by default, and classified only in concrete, justified cases, not the other way round. Let the public version of the list contain capability categories and orders of magnitude, and let the detailed data be checked by the competent committee of Parliament in closed session. This structure is not theoretical: the European good practice of defence procurement transparency separates the two levels in exactly this way.

The second question to be weighed is between rigidity and predictability. A spending path fixed in law works precisely because it cannot be renegotiated annually — but the same thing makes it risky in a time of economic downturn. The Romanian case is a warning here: if a member state holds a section of the eastern flank without an adopted budget and a functioning government, then the alliance contribution cannot be planned without fiscal stability. The solution is not the abandonment of the path but a narrow exception rule fixed in advance: in the event of how large an economic downturn, for how many years, and with what subsequent obligation to make good, may there be a departure. If this is not in the law, in the first difficult year the whole path opens up for renegotiation.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed KPIs)

Four performance indicators (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) are worth tracking in the coming twelve months:

  1. The completeness and coverage of the capability list: for how many critical supporting capability categories the alternative, cost and time-requirement estimate has been produced — proposed target: full coverage of the list within ninety days.
  2. The legal status of the defence spending path: whether there is a multi-annual path fixed in law, and whether an annual capability target belongs to it — proposed target: yes, by the start of the 2027 budget cycle.
  3. The share of productive investment within defence spending: the share of the part spent on research and development, domestic manufacturing and infrastructure — proposed target: at least 40 per cent, according to the measure fixed in the programme point.
  4. Participation in joint European procurement: the share of procurement value realised in joint EU or multinational procurement within total defence procurement — proposed target: a measurable, annually rising path.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message in a single sentence: the consultation on the review of the European force posture is already running, and Hungary’s room for manoeuvre lies not in what we think about it but in whether our own capability inventory has been produced. Concretely it asks that within ninety days the exposure list of critical supporting capabilities should be produced and made public without classified details, that by the start of the 2027 budget cycle the multi-annual defence spending path with measurable capability targets should be put into law, and that from the 2027 annual report onwards the alliance credibility audit should contain four figures instead of a narrative self-assessment. Not one of these requests is about whether more or less American presence would be desirable in Europe — that decision is not within Hungarian competence. It is about the Hungarian side having ready the material on the basis of which the Hungarian interest can be represented at the negotiation.

Two MIAK foundational values are in play in this matter. Data-drivenness, because the defence policy debate in Hungary typically concerns intentions and alliance loyalty, while at the negotiating table it will be about capabilities and deadlines; data-drivenness here means that we measure the gap before we form an opinion about it. And accountability, because a multi-annual spending path only constitutes a commitment if its delivery is verifiable annually with the same figures — towards the allies and towards Hungarian taxpayers alike.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The international press treated this subject not as a single piece of news but as several layered strands, and the difference in framing is itself instructive. The EU policy spectrum highlighted the procedural side: according to Euractiv’s report the Pentagon has now revealed that the allied consultation on the review is already taking place — this spectrum therefore reported not on the extent of the withdrawal but on the state of the decision-making. The same paper wrote in a separate article about the six-fold growth since 2021 in the membership of the German defence industry association, thereby bringing in the dimension of industrial realignment.

The Central European spectrum carried the financing and the capability side. Visegrad Insight’s analysis showed on the Polish example that in the financing of defence modernisation the bottleneck is not capital but predictable demand and the institutional background needed for scaling — certification costs, overlapping national programmes, the lack of financing for foreign demonstrations. EUobserver’s report placed the Romanian case at the centre, and thereby posed the most uncomfortable question: what is the alliance contribution worth if the contributing state has no adopted budget and no functioning government.

The transatlantic spectrum brought the critique of NATO’s adaptability. Politico Europe reported the statements of Valeriy Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and current ambassador in London, according to whom the alliance is the possessor of ‘Second World War doctrines’ and Ukraine will therefore never join it; the article at the same time records that the Ukrainian armed forces are far ahead of Western forces in the mass production of drones and missiles. AP News reported on the deepening of French–German nuclear cooperation. What is missing from all the spectra: not a single report posed the question whether the Central and Eastern European member states have produced their own capability gap inventories — even though the negotiation will turn on this.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
The status of the allied consultation on the review already under way Pentagon statement, Euractiv, August 2026
Russian drone incursions into Romanian airspace since 2022 more than 80 EUobserver, August 2026
The current frequency of the incursions almost weekly EUobserver, August 2026
The number of drones shot down at the weekend 3 (in three days, one a day) EUobserver, August 2026
First European civilian casualty outside Ukraine since the start of the war Galați, drone impact in May, a mother and her child EUobserver, August 2026
The order-of-magnitude price of the missiles used for interception around half a million euros each Romanian expert estimate, EUobserver, August 2026
Diplomatic response Bucharest expelled the Russian ambassador EUobserver, August 2026
The total size of the EU SAFE credit facility 150 billion euros Visegrad Insight, August 2026
The Polish planned share of the facility almost one third Visegrad Insight, August 2026
The change in the membership of the German defence industry association since 2021 six-fold growth Euractiv, August 2026
MIAK’s proposed defence spending path for 2027 2.5% of GDP MIAK policy area: Defence (programme points)
MIAK’s proposed defence spending path for 2030 3.5% of GDP MIAK policy area: Defence (programme points)
The proposed minimum share of productive investment from the increment 40% MIAK policy area: Defence (programme points)

A single connection deserves to be highlighted. The Romanian drone case and the Polish financing debate are the two ends of the same structural problem. On the Romanian side what is visible is that the existing equipment stock is disproportionately expensive compared with the threat to be countered — a missile costing half a million euros against a drone costing a few thousand — and on the Polish side that the smaller technology companies developing cheaper, purpose-built solutions behave differently from a financing point of view than the large state suppliers, and that the current financing structure was not made for them. The two observations together mean that filling the capability gap is not merely a budgetary question: if the procurement and financing structure remains unchanged, the money added will also be spent in the old proportions.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Defence (programme points) — the domestic mapping of the force realignment scenarios, the identification of the critical points of independent defence capability and the scheduling of the spending path (programme point ID: HV12, HV9, HV5, HV4, HV2, HV6);
  • Foreign policy (programme points) — the annual, measurable self-assessment of alliance commitments and the planning protocol for significant international commitments (programme point ID: KP23, KP22, KP13);
  • Economy (programme points) — the defence industry as a branch of industrial policy and the debt sustainability frame of the spending path (programme point ID: G9, G23).

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Niccolò Machiavelli: A fejedelem (The Prince)

Chapters XII and XIII of the work classify the types of armed force, and the author formulates the sharpest warning not about mercenary but about auxiliary troops — that is, about the case where a state has itself defended with another power’s own equipment and soldiers. According to Machiavelli such a force is ‘good and useful for their own purposes, but always harmful to the one who called them in; in the event of defeat you are ruined, and victory makes you their prisoner’. The closing thesis of the chapter generalises: according to the author ‘without its own arms no principality can be secure, and can only trust to its good fortune to escape trouble’.

It would be a misunderstanding to read this thought directly onto today’s alliance systems. NATO is not an auxiliary troop: the North Atlantic Treaty creates mutual obligations, and the continuous maintenance of domestic defence capability is also a treaty commitment, not a substitute for the alliance. Machiavelli’s argument nevertheless points precisely at the point that is the most important in the present review: if for a capability there is no domestic or European alternative, then the decision concerning that capability is not ours either. The vulnerability of the Hungarian plan does not depend on American intentions, but on how many items there are for which there is no other column in the table. The list of proposal 3.1 is therefore not a questioning of the alliance but the measurement of the extent of freedom of decision within the alliance.

📖 Source: Niccolò Machiavelli: A fejedelem (The Prince)

6.4.2 Sun Tzu: A háború művészete (The Art of War)

The best-known thesis of Sun Tzu’s treatise describes the relation of knowledge and risk, and the structure of the sentence is in itself an argument for the inventory:

“Therefore it is said that he who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles. He who does not know the enemy but knows himself will win once and fail another time. He who knows neither the enemy nor himself will suffer defeat in every battle.”

The essence of the threefold division is that self-knowledge in itself already gives half security — even without knowledge of the opponent the chance is around fifty per cent — while the joint absence of the two is certain defeat. From the point of view of Hungarian defence planning this means that producing the capability list is the highest-yield step even if we know nothing about what the allied consultation will decide. The list is not a forecast of American intentions but a description of our own situation — and in the author’s frame this is precisely the part that is always available, because it depends solely on us. Another recurring thought of the volume is that the best commander attains his objective without fighting; in the present situation this means that a significant part of the negotiating outcome is decided by the preparation, not by the negotiation.

📖 Source: Sun Tzu: A háború művészete (The Art of War)

6.4.3 European Commission: 2026 European Macroeconomic Report

The fourth chapter of the report examines the macroeconomic effects of defence spending, and its findings are directly applicable to the planning of the Hungarian spending path. According to the summary of the document, a significant expansion of EU industrial capacity is needed to meet the new security requirements, and efficient spending requires a coordinated approach among the member states; the pooling of procurement may bring an economies-of-scale advantage, which gives the member states a stronger buyer position. The chapter also records the fiscal side: an increase in defence spending remains compatible with budgetary sustainability if it is financed over the medium term by the rearrangement of expenditure and by revenue increases. According to the model calculations, meeting NATO’s updated spending target may moderately increase the gross domestic product of the euro area and of the Union — the extent of the effect, however, depends strongly on the import content, on how far the timing is front-loaded, on the share of infrastructure spending and on the extent of debt financing.

This last sentence is the most important from the point of view of Hungarian planning. According to the report, increasing defence spending brings a substantial favourable economic effect if it is directed at domestic investment and research and development, rather than at imports or current expenditure. This coincides with the constraint contained in MIAK’s own programme point, which would allocate at least 40 per cent of the increment to productive investment. The report moreover expects a moderate effect from the employment side too, but draws attention to the fact that it may cause labour shortage in certain occupations — in the Hungarian case this raises the question of the supply of engineers and technicians, and ties the subject to the vocational training programme points.

📖 Source: European Commission: 2026 European Macroeconomic Report

6.5 International comparison

The Central European comparison shows three different strategies for the same situation. Poland is building the financing structure: it would channel the funds coming from the SAFE facility into domestic industry, and is trying to make the Warsaw capital market the natural stock exchange venue for defence and dual-use companies, so that companies reaching scale do not move to London or New York. Romania shows the other extreme: the capability is there and works — the fighter jets shoot down the intruding drones — but the institutional and budgetary background behind it is missing. Germany is broadening the industrial base; the six-fold growth in the membership of the defence industry association indicates that the supplier community is now being rearranged, and whoever does not enter now will find it hard to do so in the coming decade.

The Hungarian lesson from this is not the copying of the Polish model but the recognition of the timing of entry. The rearrangement of the supply chain is a window of a few years; the qualification and certification procedures, participation in joint procurement tenders and the financing of foreign demonstrations are all conditions that Visegrad Insight’s analysis identifies as the main obstacle for Central European companies. These are not primarily budgetary items but procedural conditions — and precisely for that reason the HV4 joint procurement and the HV6 research and development programme points can advance even if the spending path is put into law only later.

Defence

  • HV12 — Geostrategic defence planning
  • HV9 — Independent defence capability, the ‘own arms’ doctrine
  • HV5 — Phased increase of defence spending
  • HV4 — EU defence industrial base and joint procurement
  • HV2 — Transparency of defence spending
  • HV6 — Defence R&D and spillover strategy
  • HV8 — Deterrence on the principle of ‘victory without battle’

Foreign policy

  • KP23 — Alliance credibility audit
  • KP22 — Exit strategy planning protocol
  • KP13 — Geopolitical situation analysis capacity

Economy

  • G9 — Strategic industrial policy
  • G23 — Public debt sustainability framework

Proposed new programme point: Enabler exposure list — the public inventory of critical supporting capabilities — for the Defence area, as a supplement to the HV12 geostrategic defence planning point.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK foreign press monitor, 5 August 2026 — topic 2):

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Niccolò Machiavelli: A fejedelem (The Prince)
  • 📖 Sun Tzu: A háború művészete (The Art of War)
  • 📖 European Commission: 2026 European Macroeconomic Report

Note: the local file path of the works does NOT appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title. The file path is an internal matter of the generation process, not the reader’s.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Defence (programme points; programme point ID: HV12, HV9, HV5, HV2)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP23, KP22)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G9, G23)
  • MIAK foreign press monitor, 5 August 2026 — topic 2, score: 85/100

Additional public data sources:

  • NATO — Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries annual report
  • NATO Defence Planning Process — public summaries
  • European Defence Agency — Defence Data (member state defence spending and joint procurement share)
  • SIPRI — Military Expenditure Database
  • European Commission — EDIP and EDIRPA documents

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