ABSTRACT
As Anglo-French military forces intervened in Egypt in late 1956, Soviet military forces initiated similar actions against Hungary. An initial operation, intended to quell an uprising by Hungarian dissidents, began on 24 October, while a subsequent operation, intended to overthrow the government of Imre Nagy and keep Hungary in the Warsaw Pact, began on 1 November. Consistent with the prudential restraint model, Soviet policymakers expressed concern that these arguably illegal military interventions would evoke resistance from other states and altered their actions accordingly. During the initial intervention, reinforcements from outside Hungary were not deployed until after the Hungarian government requested them, and no additional reinforcements were deployed once a ceasefire had been proclaimed. During the subsequent intervention, although Soviet policy-makers arranged for a provisional government to request Soviet military assistance, they concluded afterwards that their failure to exercise sufficient restraint had prompted non-aligned states to downgrade their perceptions of Soviet intentions.
