Mutual suspicions still rule out large-scale military cooperation in Central Europe. Martin Ehl, Transitions OnlineCould Slovaks ever imagine Hungarian pilots patrolling their airspace? That question is worth asking this week, a month before the NATO summit in Chicago, as ministers from Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic contemplate their first joint security initiative in the 20 years since they made a pact of mutual cooperation in Visegrad, Hungary.
The question of mutual trust in an area as sensitive as defense remains key, as the discussions at the Globsec security conference in Bratislava last week highlighted yet again. The economic situation of the Visegrad countries and all of NATO has been pushing them to scrutinize every crown, euro, zloty, or forint – and what they can’t afford on their own, they should learn to buy or share together. In NATO that’s called Smart Defense.
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