Serbia, between growing aspirations and realistic limitations of the policy of a small state
Vladimir Vučković / 20 Jun 2023
Since the mid-2000s, Serbia has strived to position itself as the leading actor in the Western Balkans. To a large extent, regardless of its international reputation, Belgrade tried to imitate the foreign policy of socialist Yugoslavia, based on the balancing of power between East and West, which aimed at both military-political protection and obtaining economic aid from both sides.
Progressively, Boris Tadić’s government in 2009 promoted the seemingly new concept of “4 pillars of foreign policy” - cooperation with the EU, the US, Russia, and China, giving this multivector policy the institutional framework itself.
However, the proclaimed foreign policy of “both East and West” was additionally strengthened after Aleksandar Vučić came to power in 2012, since then, Serbia has been embarking on signing strategic partnerships with the countries of the world, including with the UAE (2013), Russia (2014), China (2016), Azerbaijan (2018).
The article was written as part of the project "The Western Balkans at the Crossroads: Democratic Backsliding and External Actors’ Influence" led by the Prague Security Studies Institute, sponsored by National Endowment for Democracy (NED). For more information, visit: www.balkancrossroads.com.