Hungary ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ in US-Russia Relations: Geopolitical Strategist

And joining us now live to discuss Hungary's prime minister's visit from Victor Orban to the White House is Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gobb. He's a geopolitical strategist as well as a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot and and a battalion commander with the US Army. Thanks for joining us this morning, Darren. It's good to see you. Now, Hungary's Orban is in the rare position, right? He enjoys strong relationships with both Trump and with Putin. So, you know, what are you expecting from today's meeting? >> Hey, good morning, Carrie. Yeah, I think in the end what you're going to find are comments that are along the lines of it was a very productive discussion and it was a positive event and that's going to be like the the entry level comments. But what you're going to really want to be hearing is it's all about the oil when it comes to Hungary because they're going to want to continue access to it from Russia because that's the only place they get it from. They have one pipeline going into Hungary. They have no access to sea and sea ports to get it from anywhere else. And so in some ways they're stuck between a rock and a hard place and they have to try to keep friendships on both sides. That's a common Eastern European problem is trying to maintain friendly relationships both both east and west and the history in Eastern Europe is pretty significant when it comes to that. So I don't expect you're going to find anything other than you know friendly comments about the entire discussion today. and he's going to want to be able to walk away and go home to Hungary and say that Trump was very receptive to him being able to bypass some of the rules against importing Russian oil because frankly they don't get it from anywhere else anyways. >> Yeah. When Trump had kind of laid down the gauntlet, he he didn't call out France and Spain specifically, but they were also buying Russian oil products. Um and they have many other options. Poland, though, is saying Hungary could get oil from a southern corridor. it probably would cost them more and they just choose not to. So, you know, can you have your cake and eat it here too? Obviously, Orban wants to go back keeping the relations with Trump but getting this carve out. You know, can you can you be half pregnant? I guess last I checked that was kind of difficult. Um, I I think ultimately what he's trying to do is he's trying to avoid having to to beg from friends in order to get that southern corridor or access via other means and just be able to continue the way he's doing it. Now, you can argue that, you know, whether that's good or bad or otherwise, but uh this is just one example of why Hungary is so unique in in in the fact that it's hard to figure out or Bonnet. If if you're looking for things that are anti-freedom, anti-democracy, you're going to have plenty there to look at. But if you're also looking for things that are uh more pro- freedom and pro-democracy and, you know, immigration controls and various things like that, you're going to find that, too. So yeah, haters on both sides are going to find plenty. Lovers on both sides are going to find plenty as well. But what he's really coming here to do is to try to make sure that the the Hungarian economy is able to be kept alive and be able to import that oil from Russia because that's the road ahead that he feels like he needs to to pave and that's the biggest one. >> Yeah. Just in our in our last hour we had Brendan Wikard on. He was talking about some of the the bad pasts in Syria and their current leader, but that Trump is looking forward and trying to create new alliances that advance his agenda for peace as well as for decoupling from China with reliance on things like rare earths. Um Hungary to that point has had historically a very rocky past with Russia. Can you explore that and how Orban has sort of gotten close to Putin? Well, Iran's gotten close to Putin out of necessity, and many nations in Eastern Europe tend to do that. Again, this this is the historical problem of being, frankly, the the the lamb that constantly gets run over when West invades east or east invades west. And that's been going on for for many years. You know, we're talking back to the Napoleonic era uh and others. So, that's really what Orban is in and many others are in as well. So any Eastern European nation is going to have rocky relationships with Western Europe and Moscow in in in what some would call Eastern Europe because they consider, you know, Moscow itself part of Eastern Europe in some ways too. So they're they're trying to just and Hungary did this too. They're trying to maintain friendships with regard with Moscow regardless of who's in charge there in order to try to maintain somewhat of a semblance of friendliness regardless of what's going on in the world while also knowing that in many cases the economy that they need is Western Europe. Just like Russia needs access to Western Europe to sell energy there. They Western Europe needs to be able to buy the energy well for now from Russia. although we prefer they buy it from us. That's the history of every president and prime minister in Eastern Europe is a balancing act between two powerful foes and they're the ones stuck in the middle. >> Yeah. You can almost see how making the US less of an oil producer in the previous administrations really weakened our hand in these global um sort of interconnected discussions. When you look at India as part of bricks, similar situation to Hungary that you're just describing, how has ramping up oil production kind of changed Trump's hand in these negotiations and in these dealings? Yeah, you know, national security is energy security these days and that's what it's all about and and we as America have the capacity to be energy independent of all nations and to be a primary exporter on a global scale and should continue to pursue that. Our hands have been tied by ourselves largely unfortunately through international alliances of no value through overregulation in many ways across the country here and to to provide an example of what could be done if we wanted to. There's enough coal in Montana and Wyoming in places that I know where it's at to power the energy industry in America for well over 250 years, produce enough electricity to be more than um compensating for any losses anywhere else. But we tie our own hands in getting access to it through all these different regulations. If we can free up the energy industry to not only take care of ourselves and be an exporter, we actually change the entire global security dynamic and our relationship with numerous numerous nations and regions. >> Yes, that beautiful clean coal up in Montana. I'd like to see it up close uh in the near future. Uh and hopefully these meetings that you're discussing, maybe Turk uh Turkey as well as Hungary can be the way that we can get this thaw with Putin that we're all hoping for. really appreciate you joining us this morning. Colonel Darren Gob, great to see you. You, too. Thanks, Kier.