Despite shared historical experience and cultural proximity, the Visegrad group (V4 — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) struggles to institutionalise its cooperation through stable mechanisms ensuring internal cohesion and external credibility. This is especially evident in the field of security and defence, which requires a shared strategic vision, in particular common norms regarding the legitimate use of military force. While in the 1990s the four countries exhibited solidarity and unity in their collective ambition under the narrative of the ‘Return to Europe’, their general perception of security threats and their strategic cultures prevent deeper integration into a security community. Reviewing the leading norms that constitute the four states' foreign and security policies, this paper shows them to be not only dissimilar but often contradictory, a dissonance that fundamentally limits the security and defence potential of the grouping and hinders the V4 from becoming a recognised security community.