|
Hungary HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SETTING
Hungary had a glorious military tradition in the Middle
Ages.
However, long resistance to the Ottoman Turks left Hungary
weak,
and the country was eventually partitioned by the Turks
and the
Habsburgs in 1541. Thereafter--except for the period
between
World War I and World War II--Hungary's armed forces have
been
subject to those of an outside power, first the Habsburg
imperial
army and then, after World War II, the Soviet-dominated
Warsaw
Pact.
Hungary has played less of a role in the Soviet
alliance
system than the other Warsaw Pact countries except for
Romania.
It had the smallest army in the
Warsaw Pact (see Glossary).
Unlike the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and
Czechoslovakia, which border on the Federal Republic of
Germany (West Germany), Hungary does not border on a member of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Data as of September 1989
|
