Well, plenty of potential things. In strictly defence terms, they buy weaponry from US and Germany. Hungarian air force operates Swedish Gripen fighters and thus most likely relies on Sweden at least for spare parts (which military jets need lots of) so here's another pressure point. They are big beneficiaries of EU funding (not a NATO thing but this is all intertwined) and already at odds with EU rules, which could push them towards not getting the funding - there are plenty of reasons to implement that already, just lacking political will right now. They can find themselves sidelined for new EU spending, political nominations, and so on.
The question would of course be if EU/NATO want to do that. It's part of the usual political horse-trading game.
For sure, in the extreme scenario if US/EU/main partners really wanted Finland and Sweden to join and Hungary vetoed, it could be made to pay an unaffordable price.
Didn’t the US/EU take the high moral of self determination for every country, when supporting Ukraine’s actions? So, if Hungary “self determines” to veto access to NATO, which is its right according to NATO’s rules, why punish it and suffer consequences? It would be the same as Russia invading Ukraine to punish it for “self determining” its choice to join NATO or the EU. I don’t care about rhetoric and window dressing. I want to argue the raw facts. I feel most people here are hypocrites. Let’s agree that the US and EU are equal bandits as Russia. Let’s all drop the hypocrisy.
I don't think there is much demand for JAS Gripen in Nato countries at this day. 4th gen fighters do not have much lifetime left in them, and F35 is increasingly taking the role of the current-gen fighter for advanced nations.
But Sweden is already member of the Cuture Combat Air System (FCAS) initiative to create a 6th gen air war system of systems, alongside nato members. And this kind of colaboration will be even more natural when/if they join Nato.
Dunno. If it was something else, I'd be tempted to agree. But Sweden deciding to join NATO, everyone but Hungary agreeing, Sweden stopping parts? Not sure. It's a, well, minor act of military... aggression? Extreme unhelpfulness for sure.
Also the real question would be, would Hungary see it as a credible threat. Were they to go ahead with that, they'd find themselves with no airforce and unhappy allies. That sounds like a raise they couldn't afford to raise.
But even if not, in the most extreme case, everyone else could leave NATO and simultaneously join NATO++, which is just NATO without Hungary, but with Finland.
(And because that kind of process is possible in theory, I would suggest that any organisation with a voluntary exit clause might also want to have a clause that allows the unanimous vote by everyone else to expel one member. Maybe..)
This is all speculation about the most extreme consequences. Other commenters wrote more realistic things about trade in weapons being disrupted.
And, of course, you could set up 'NATO++' as an alliance between US, Finland and other willing nations, without shutting down old NATO. Just like Ukraine receives a lot of assistance from NATO countries these days without being in NATO.
Probably much more severe than that, at least if they were not able to provide a good excuse for the Veto, and this is seen as them forming a 5th column more loyal to Putin than Nato.
In such a case, Nato could in principle invoke Article 60 of the Vienna convention, and if all other members agreed, they could expel Hungary from Nato. Similarly, if their conflicts with the EU continue to escalate, they may be expelled from the EU in a similar fashion.
This would be a catastrophe for Hungary.
Not that I believe that it would ever come to this. Just a hint of this from key Nato/EU countries should be enough to make Hungary back down.
More likely, if Hungary wants to buy some favour from the Kremlin, they would drag out the expansion process by a few months.
I don't think anyone wants that big hole on the alliance's border. Hungary might not be as critically positioned as Turkey, but it's still in a pretty awkward place.
But as you say, Orban could drag his feet a bit. Chances are his party enjoyed direct funding from Moscow, like others in their orbit all over Europe.
Maybe I'm biased as someone living much further north, but it seems to me that Sweden and Finland have more strategic geographic importance than Hungary, at least as long as Ukraine doesn't fall completely (ie as long as Russia doesn't get a common border with Hungary).
Without a shared border with Russia, Hungary's usefulness in a conflict would be relatively limited for Russia. On the other hand, for it would be highly dangerous for Hungary to willingly align with Russia, as that would make it likely that a future conflict would be fought on their territory.
As long as Sweden and Finland remain neutral, they are at risk. Putin has shown that he is willing to use military force to grab land. Should he grab Finland and Sweden, he would effectively control the Baltic sea and also have bases that can reach Western Europe much more easily than he can at the moment.
On the other hand, with Finland in the alliance, Nato has a highly defensible (for Nato) shared front with Russia, in the case of a conflict.
Also, keep in mind that Finland + Sweden together has a greater population than Hungary as well as maybe 5x the GDP, and that while Hungary is moving towards totalitarianism, Sweden and Finland both have long democratic traditions, low corruption, etc.
> Sweden and Finland both have long democratic traditions
Very different ones.
Sweden has been independent forever and a democracy since 1921.
Finland was first a part of Sweden, later an autonomous part of Russia. In 1917 it became independent and a democracy. However, a bloody civil war followed. Although it did not last long, consequences in politics and society remained visble for generations. Between 1945 and 1990 there were limitations to the democracy. They would only do what was assumed not to annoy the Soviets too much. Party leaders and prime ministers were chosen according to that principle. Freedom of the press existed only as long it was not too negative about the Soviet Union.
While it changed with the end of the Soviet Union in 1990, they could join EU 1995, applying for NATO marks only the real end of that period that they could not freely determine the direction of their country.
By your definition (ie universal suffrage), the USA has only been democratic since 1965. So that makes Sweden's democracy twice as old as the US democracy.
But that is not what I mean when I say "democratic traditions". Especially for countries that introduce democracy gradually and (mostly) peacefully, I consider the whole transition period to be part of those traditions. A country like Sweden had more than 100 years (1809-1921) of public discussions and political manouvering to build up the institutions, culture and education that provide stability, legitimacy and public support to such a system.
Finland underwent a similar development from the end of the Civil War to 1990, which mean that in 1990 the democratic institutions and traditions had already been built.
Other Warzaw pact countries had varying amounts of democratic traditions at that point. Some (like Hungary) had seen little democracy. Others, such as Czechoslovakia had been mostly democratic in the interwar period, while most had seen some democracy and some authoritarian rule in that period.
I would argue that those traditions from 100 years ago play a part, even today. And in the case of Sweden vs Finland vs Hungary, Sweden and Finland both have very strong traditions for democracy (even if the age of those traditions are different), while for countries like Hungary and Ukraine, those traditions are still shaky.
In the name of democracy the US would attack Hungary economically, and leverage any dependency that other countries have on the US to force them to also attack Hungary economically or to join them as an official enemy.
I could only see a very mild version of this happening.
More realistically, they could just spin up an alternative alliance between US, Finland and any other willing current NATO member (but excluding Hungary). And over time move more and more importance to this new NATO++, and perhaps even eventually drop out of old NATO.
There's no provisions for kicking countries out of NATO. But everyone else leaving the club is equivalent to kicking one country out.
