The grand return of the troops

The aim of this paper is to fill the geographical gap in literature about militarization COVID-19 through a comparative exploration how pandemic was handled militarized ways Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Drawing from official government military statements, media articles, expert interviews with defense intellectuals, we examine two interconnected areas – that discourse domestic assistance. By viewing developments lens military-society relations scholarship, argue rather than serving as ‘portal’ for civilian resilience, constituted an unprecedented ‘return troops’ Visegrad states societies terms its size, scope, duration, thus strengthening pressure re-militarization region has been recorded last decade. presents number analytical findings: first, it identifies emerging between right-wing populist rhetoric relied on warspeak human-centered communication armed forces; second, reveals assistance functioned ‘band aid’ systemic vulnerabilities, well incidentally converged illiberal patterns governance; third, shows aided re-militarizing pressures, resulting significant boost sector, positive public opinion forces, relations.