A War of Narratives in the Air: Hungary's position at the intersection of hybrid warfare and communication pressure

The Hungarian government’s defence policy is to meet its commitments to the NATO alliance while, at the same time, maintaining sovereignty. This gives rise to a major challenge: how can the government avoid being seen as being insufficiently committed to supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, in the context of hybrid warfare in the 21st Century?
This paper explains what hybrid warfare is: a situation where perceptions - or narratives - are a structural element of the conflict and not just an accompaniment to it. In the Russian-Ukrainian war, hybrid warfare is closely associated with the use of drones - the technical aspects of which are discussed in detail. The paper explains three situations where drones flew into or across Hungarian airspace, and how these situations generated politically-charged narratives. Appropriate responses from the Hungarian government are outlined.
The paper describes how the Russian-Ukrainian war is a “factory of wartime rhetoric” of narratives that focus on the unity of NATO: this complicates the attainment of the Hungarian government’s strategic objectives.