Partner or Ally? V4 Countries’ Bilateral Relations with the United States

Comparative Analysis of Strategic Documents between 2020 and 2023

Abstract

After its summit in Prague on 27 February 2024, the Visegrád Group suffered a breakdown of relations, mainly due to the divergent views of its member states regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. The V4 countries split into a pro-Ukraine block (Poland and the Czech Republic) and a Ukraine-sceptic block (Hungary and Slovakia), which made it difficult for the group to present a united front on key issues and diminished its ability to influence broader European policy. In addition, the lack of unity weakens the V4’s collective security posture while the Central European region has gained strategic importance as part of NATO’s eastern flank. The deterioration of the security environment also impacted the V4 countries’ bilateral relations with the United States, as the pro-Ukraine countries intend to maintain close cooperation with Washington, while the sceptics are staunch critics of Western policies supporting Ukraine. This paper highlights the fundamental differences between the latest security strategies and foreign policies of the Visegrád Group countries towards the United States, Russia and China, looking at these countries’ latest national security strategies and the 2022 integrated country strategies of the United States Department of State. Our comparative analysis shows that Hungary can be considered an outsider among the V4 countries since the Hungarian Government intends to pursue pragmatic cooperation with Russia and China while U.S.–Hungarian relations are gradually deteriorating. In contrast, the other three member states – especially Poland and the Czech Republic, but also Slovakia regardless of Robert Fico’s return to power in 2023 – favoured closer ties with the United States and shared most of the same concerns over Moscow and Beijing.