Viktor Orban has found faithful and unwavering allies in America who never fail to show their affections. The Hungarian leader is consistently soft-balled during interviews, as seen with Tucker Carlson’s gentle approach on air for Fox News. Yet, it’s not merely these media engagements, or the invitations to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or even the commendations from JD Vance that demonstrate their bond.
This extra mile taken by US populists in support of Orban, even as he repudiates their staunch anti-China position, is the authentic marker of camaraderie. For American conservatives, China’s emergence is a historical threat, but Orban seems to view it quite differently. Consider his conduct in 2024 alone: hosting and visiting Xi Jinping, welcoming China’s elevation of Budapest to a “full-time” partnership, and publicly endorsing China as a facet of a “multipolar” world, free from US imposition. And even while all these actions are in plain view, alongside extensive Chinese inbound investment, the faction of US conservatism embodied by Carlson and Vance continues to display unyielding loyalty to Orban.
It’s improbable to think of some intelligent subterfuge here: the Republican right’s foreign affairs stance is just jumbled. Its twin core tendencies—resistance to China and a liking for authoritarian leaders, multiple of whom are pro-China—are irreconcilably at odds. And Orban isn’t the most prominent example; that would be Vladimir Putin since the Ukraine invasion. In the past, like in 2021, it might’ve been vaguely plausible to straddle neutrality, or perhaps show leniency towards Russia, while confronting China. However, in this period of an unrestricted alliance between the two nations, where each supports the other diplomatically and materially, the Republican stance is indefensible. To stand against China calls for decisive action on Russia too.
What goes through the minds of American populists? How might we reconcile their revulsion toward one autocracy with their leniency towards its primary ally? Perhaps they hope to charm Russia away from China overtime, mirroring the Sino-Soviet split but with an emphasis on Moscow instead of Beijing as the target of America’s advances. This would at least possess some logic, but no evidence supports this conjecture. The perspective of the CPAC-attending demographic seems to regard Russia as either an overblown threat or a bastion of conservative Christian beliefs countering the wave of liberal relativism. The notion of a Nixon-style strategy to separate the two Eurasian powers doesn’t feature. Given Putin’s pronounced loyalty to China, how could it?
With the contentious election victory of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s strife is likely to intensify. The broader Druze community is still grappling with the shock of a missile attack resulting in 12 fatalities. Meanwhile, questions surface about what the Secret Service knew concerning a shooting involving Trump, guided by their texts and photos. Israel is contemplating its reponse following a rocket attack which resulted in the death of 12 children and multiple injuries.
This brings us to the simplest, albeit most disappointing conclusion. People like Vance and his cohort may not fully recognise the inconsistency in their political views. They have not dwelt on it sufficiently.
The most challenging aspect to communicate regarding contemporary politics to discerning readers, who generally believe ideas are the catalysts for happenings, is the superficial partisan nature of it. Individuals adopt certain standpoints simply because the adversarial side does not. The moment defending Ukraine became a liberal agreement, the right was destined to veer in the opposite direction. This was never a conservative doctrine (note that at the beginning, leading Republicans were more eager than Joe Biden to impose sanctions on Russia for an invasion).
An interesting term has reached me at the threshold of my middle years: “edgelord”, online vernacular for an individual who aims to jolt and insult the liberal masses. This edgelord mentality has permeated even the upper echelons of the Republican party. The result? A disordered foreign policy that categorises China as an unparalleled menace to American interests and self-esteem, but regards Russia – China’s key supporter – with a more lenient stance. The solution? Reduce tension on Russia by shortchanging Ukraine and view Orbán, Russia’s gateway to Europe, as a casualty of liberal defamation.
In a revised understanding, it would seem that the viewpoint shared, loosely, by political figures like Senator Josh Hawley is rather simplistic – the belief that resources utilised in defending Ukraine against Russia represent resources that Taiwan cannot use against China. Such a perspective transparently overlooks the nuanced reality that military supplies designed for land combat in Europe may not be compatible for eastern Asian maritime theatres of conflict.
This is a prime example of how geostrategic calculations can sometimes be grossly oversimplified. Would a more sophisticated Republican argument not propose that supporting Ukraine has fortified America’s position against China? It has enabled the United States to illustrate to all nations straddling the line between the two superpowers that they’re capable of immobilising one of the world’s most formidable military powers. It has achieved this using Pentagon donations, on a foreign continent, over an unspecified period.
This demonstration of effortless might hasn’t been observed since the initial Gulf War. In the aftermath of the Afghanistan disaster, the benefits of aligning with the US were murky at best. However, this scenario has transformed. What an odd stance for staunch American nationalists to be against.
– Reproduced with permission from The Financial Times Limited, 2024.