The ”Ask the Expert!” spring series of 2019 NATO 70/20 ended in Debrecen
On May 15, 2019, the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade organized the latest episode of the “Ask the Expert!” foreign policy discussion series in Debrecen, following two sessions in Győr and Szeged. Due to the double NATO-anniversary this year, the event was entitled “The 70-year-old history of NATO and Hungary’s 20-year-old history in the Alliance”, hosted by the Institute of English and American Studies of the University of Debrecen. The invited experts included associate professor Tibor Glant, PhD of the University of Debrecen and Tamás Csiki Varga, PhD, assistant research fellow of the National University of Public Service ’s Center for Strategic and Defense Studies. IFAT was represented by senior analyst Diána Szőke and our colleague Áron Szászi.
As an opening remark, Diána Szőke briefly introduced the work of IFAT, as well as the concept of the discussion series. This was followed by the introduction of the experts, who outlined their field of research.
The first topic of the discussion was the Ukrainian conflict, which is one of the most tense military conflicts of recent history. The audience was interested in the challenges coming from the East to the NATO due to the proximity of the city to the Hungarian-Ukranian border. Following the above, the experts discussed the issue of cyber warfare and its impact, detectability, growing role and confirmability, as well as NATO’s capabilities in this regard.
The roundtable discussion also touched upon the topic of hybrid-warfare, which has recently gained a significant role, especially due to communication through social media. The questions of the audience included phenomenon of fake news, big data and securitization. The event ended with the evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of communications between NATO members.