Slovakia is no longer a state its own citizens are willing to die for—an indictment that exposes a collapse of trust so deep it now threatens the country’s strategic reliability within NATO. Just 14 percent of Slovaks say they would take up arms if Russia invaded, according to an April 2025 Focus poll, underscoring a profound loss of faith not only in political leadership but in the legitimacy of the state itself. This crisis of confidence reflects years of elite impunity, institutional rot, and Kremlin-backed disinformation—embodied most visibly by Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose four-term premiership has been marked by corruption and contempt for democratic accountability, and President Peter Pellegrini, the wartime Commander-in-Chief, whose ideological fluidity, opportunistic politics, and fear-driven campaign have positioned him in near-total compliance with the domestic and foreign policy agenda of Prime Minister Fico.
In a searing personal essay, Slovak writer and philosopher Ján Markoš confronts this rupture, asking whether he himself would fight for such a state. His answer—“Honestly, I’m not sure”—echoes far beyond personal hesitation: it signals a structural weakness on NATO’s eastern flank, where societal resilience has withered, and the state has lost the moral authority to command sacrifice.
Ján Markoš is a Slovak writer, chess grandmaster, and lecturer in critical thinking. He studied philosophy and theology at Charles University in Prague and led the Socrates Institute, a programme for gifted students. His bestselling books explore ethics, critical thinking, and the psychology of chess.
In a deeply personal reflection prompted by a startling new poll—showing that only 14 percent of Slovaks would take up arms if Russia invaded—Markoš confronts a question few in Slovakia dare to ask aloud: Would I fight to defend my country? His answer is disarmingly candid—“Honestly, I’m not sure.” This is no manifesto for pacifism, but a brutal reckoning with what it truly means to ask people to die for a state they no longer believe in, at a time when Slovakia’s readiness to defend itself—let alone its NATO allies—is in freefall.
“We would become slaves.”
This is Markoš’s assessment of what military service would look like for ordinary Slovak men with no combat training. Drawing on testimonies from Ukrainian soldiers reported by war correspondent Tomáš Forró, he recalls chilling descriptions of new recruits being reduced to “brainless shit”—tools in a command structure still steeped in Soviet-style authoritarianism. He fears the Slovak Armed Forces are no different. “What assurance do we have that we would not become defenceless slaves to someone incompetent or without character?” he asks.
“Is it truly heroic to die for nothing?”
Markoš challenges the romanticised notion of self-sacrifice in war. He points to a case in Ukraine where elite drone operators—soldiers with specialised skills and proven effectiveness—were sent to the front line without justification, a decision tantamount to a death sentence. “If it were clear we had little chance of surviving more than a few days, would it really make sense to offer ourselves up as a gesture? Wouldn’t we be more useful elsewhere?” he argues.
“We would return broken.”
Even in the best-case scenario—survival—Markoš sees no victory. He shares the words of Ukrainian writer and former soldier Stanislav Asejev, who claimed military service damaged him more than prison. The brutal indifference of military hierarchies, he says, fosters emotional numbness and moral corrosion. Markoš warns: “We’d come back with deep wounds to the soul—and maybe also mutilated bodies.”
“We would leave our families defenceless.”
The moral weight of abandoning loved ones is a burden Markoš cannot accept. He recounts a Slovak-Ukrainian couple’s desperate attempt to stay together during the Russian invasion—only to be split by mobilisation laws. “Going to war means leaving your family in a difficult situation and risking the collapse of relationships,” he writes. “Who would voluntarily subject themselves to this—especially knowing the trauma it would inflict on small children?”
“I do not trust this state with my life.”
This is the heart of Markoš’s dilemma. He refuses to hand over “a blank cheque on my life” to a state that, in his view, neglects its citizens even in peacetime. His distrust is not abstract: it is embodied in two men. Peter Pellegrini, the current Speaker of the Slovak Parliament and leading candidate for the presidency, and Robert Kaliňák, Slovakia’s controversial Defence Minister, both with long records of undermining institutional integrity. “Why should I entrust my life to an army commanded by these men?” he asks.
Markoš makes one thing clear: “If someone attacked my family, I would defend them to the last moment.” But he refuses to conflate such instinctive defence with obedience to a failing state. “If the state wants its citizens to risk their lives, it must first prove that it genuinely cares about them,” he concludes.
Markoš’s reflections capture a profound rupture between citizen and state in Slovakia. His voice is not that of a coward—it is that of a citizen demanding accountability before obedience.
Losing the Information War, Losing the Will to Fight
The profound distrust expressed by Ján Markoš towards the Slovak state highlights a structural vulnerability in Slovakia’s defence and security posture as a NATO member. Such scepticism, rooted deeply in institutional failures and political disillusionment, severely undermines the state’s capacity to mobilise and sustain meaningful defence operations. Markoš’s reflection is emblematic of a broader crisis, where citizens no longer perceive their government as a credible guarantor of security and stability. Consequently, national readiness and resilience—critical components of NATO’s collective defence—are significantly compromised.
This erosion of trust is not merely a local phenomenon but a symptom of a broader systemic failure within Slovakia, exacerbated by prolonged neglect from both domestic leaders and Western elites. Over the past two decades, Russian influence operations have methodically exploited vulnerabilities in Slovakia’s information ecosystem, leveraging disinformation and propaganda to sow confusion, division, and apathy. The persistent ignorance and underinvestment by Slovak, European, and American policymakers in adequately addressing and countering these cognitive security threats have amplified their corrosive effects.
Slovakia’s current defence predicament, therefore, reflects a wider failure to prioritise the information domain as central to national security strategy. While NATO’s military capabilities remain robust in conventional terms, the alliance’s efficacy is significantly reduced if member populations no longer share foundational values or trust in their governments. This strategic oversight has left Slovakia—and indeed much of the West—particularly vulnerable to information warfare. The gradual dismantling of consensus, trust, and civic cohesion has become a critical structural weakness, undermining not only Slovakia’s national defence but potentially impacting NATO’s collective security posture.
Source:
Ján Markoš | Denník N
Victor Breiner | Slovak Media Monitor
