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