Europe’s most fragile area isn’t sleepwalking towards struggle, however it’s quietly recalibrating for it. Throughout the Western Balkans, navy procurement choices as soon as framed as technical upgrades are evolving into one thing extra consequential: a shifting steadiness of energy unfolding at a second when Europe’s safety order strains underneath rising trans-Atlantic stress.
These regional dynamics emerged inconsistently, with Serbia clearly main the best way a decade in the past. In response, neighboring nations have additionally modernized their militaries, although in numerous methods. NATO members akin to Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia have centered totally on assembly alliance functionality and interoperability benchmarks. Fellow NATO ally Croatia’s modernization is equally formed by alliance necessities, but in addition by acute insecurity stemming from Serbia’s “better state” ambitions and its speedy militarization. In the meantime, non-NATO members Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are navigating extra autonomous and regional delicate calculations. The collective consequence isn’t imminent struggle, however a posh setting formed by uneven capabilities, alliance asymmetries, and competing political narratives. These components outline the strategic context during which navy modernization is now unfolding. Whereas the area might be not returning to the conflicts of the Nineteen Nineties, a safety dilemma is rising with out clear guardrails: Defensive measures by one state can inadvertently heighten insecurity for others.
This issues now as a result of the circumstances that when dampened escalation are weakening. Exterior safety ensures really feel much less automated, and deterrence indicators are more and more inconsistent. Russia’s struggle in Ukraine has unsettled assumptions about restraint, borders, and the prices of utilizing drive. On this setting, militarization doesn’t require aggressive intent to change into destabilizing. Misperception, uneven capabilities, and narratives that body drive as respectable can set off crises sooner than political establishments can reply. NATO and EU leaders ought to due to this fact push for better confidence-building measures and political transparency throughout the area.
A Postwar Balkans in Transition
After the disastrous ethnic wars of the Nineteen Nineties, the Balkans had been outlined by cautious disarmament and arms management, externally assured peace, and reliance on worldwide oversight. The wars left behind unresolved ethno-territorial disputes that proceed to form safety perceptions. Most prominently, Serbia doesn’t acknowledge Kosovo’s independence, whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina stays internally fragmented alongside ethno-political traces underneath the Dayton framework. Though large-scale violence ended a long time in the past, disputes over sovereignty, minority safety, and borders persist, making navy signaling unusually delicate. These unresolved legacies imply that even defensive drive improvement is commonly interpreted via the lens of previous battle quite than as purely technical modernization. Certainly, battle historical past stays central to how regional states interpret navy indicators and assess threat.
Relations between Serbia and Kosovo stay advanced greater than 20 years after the 1998 to 1999 struggle. Whereas Serbia doesn’t acknowledge Kosovo, the 2 nations have agreed to a dialogue facilitated by the European Union — though its implementation has been characterised by half-measures and violations. Periodic crises starting from disputes over governance in northern Kosovo to violent incidents involving safety forces have prevented full normalization. Regardless of the EU dialogue and NATO’s longstanding peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, relations stay fragile and vulnerable to escalation.
For the reason that Nineteen Nineties, most Balkan nations have prioritized financial restoration and institutional improvement over navy functionality. Full NATO integration turned the principal safety anchor for Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, shaping every nation’s respective protection modernization inside an alliance framework. For its half, Serbia navigated a extra advanced path, balancing regional dominance ambitions with ties to Moscow, Beijing, and later Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo aspire to hitch NATO however face distinct structural and political constraints that restrict the tempo and scope of their modernization.
From 2000 to 2015, Serbia maintained vital latent functionality, together with heavy armor and air protection techniques, inherited from the Yugoslav period. After 2015, Serbia shifted from latent functionality to energetic modernization, largely unnoticed by outdoors observers. Certainly, regardless of steadily rising protection spending, European Fee annual nation stories on Serbia didn’t acknowledge the upward pattern till 2020, when Serbia’s navy spending was famous to have elevated by practically 30 p.c year-on-year and procurement from Russia and China was first explicitly referenced. Serbia’s strategy emphasised legacy energy, selective modernization, and procurement diversification — a system that positioned the nation because the area’s first mover in navy improvement.
Serbia: Strategic Buildup and Procurement Diversification
Serbian leaders body this modernization as a response to a deteriorating regional safety panorama. Official narratives often cite NATO’s growth in southeast Europe, Kosovo’s alignment with Western safety buildings, and the long-standing presence of NATO forces in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina as proof of strategic constraint. From Belgrade’s perspective, diversification of suppliers and funding in superior capabilities are required to protect autonomy and freedom of motion.
Serbia’s buildup started round 2015 with elevated investments in fight plane, air protection, armored autos, drones, and digital warfare. Its protection price range exceeded two billion {dollars} yearly by the mid-2020s, or roughly 2.5 p.c of GDP. This acceleration occurred after key regional states had already joined NATO (Hungary in 1999; Romania and Bulgaria in 2004; and Croatia and Albania in 2009). Montenegro and North Macedonia joined NATO later (2017 and 2020, respectively), after Serbia’s trajectory was already underway. Importantly, Serbia’s Nationwide Safety Technique and Protection Technique don’t stipulate NATO enlargement within the Balkans as a main cause for militarization. The truth is, Serbia has maintained formal engagement with NATO via the Partnership for Peace program and an Particular person Partnership Motion Plan, underscoring a multi-vector effort quite than outright confrontation.
Serbia’s procurement technique strengthened its intent to form the regional navy steadiness in help of its political objectives. Serbia acquired Israeli precision-strike and surveillance applied sciences and French Rafale fighter jets, whereas sustaining Russian and Chinese language techniques. Not like NATO members, whose modernization is basically guided by alliance interoperability necessities and collective protection obligations, Serbia’s strategy mirrored impartial strategic priorities.
In parallel with navy modernization, Serbian leaders have projected political narratives emphasizing the safety of co-nationals residing overseas — primarily in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro — and historic grievances associated to lack of territory and management. Whereas signaling defensive intent domestically, such framing formed regional perceptions and heightened sensitivity to Serbian navy strikes. This mixture of public framing and rising capabilities made neighbors acutely conscious that misjudging Serbia’s intentions may carry actual dangers.
Serbian political ambition and decisive motion intersected in Sept. 2023, when closely armed males crossed from into northern Kosovo, killing a police officer and abandoning armored autos and weapons. Investigations traced tools and coaching again to Serbia. This was not an remoted incident. It adopted repeated will increase in Serbian troop presence alongside the Kosovo border during times of heightened stress, strikes that repeatedly triggered regional and worldwide concern. Whereas Belgrade denied direct involvement, the incident illustrates how the margin for error has narrowed. Even minor miscalculations can escalate rapidly, reinforcing the safety dilemma that defines regional dynamics.
Neighboring States: Reactive Modernization
Serbia’s navy buildup has prompted a collection of nationally distinct navy modernization responses throughout the area. These responses are usually not the product of collective planning or coordination, however of parallel nationwide choices formed by varied components, together with alliance standing, home constraints, and differing menace perceptions.
Albania accelerated efforts to fulfill NATO functionality benchmarks of investing 2 p.c of GDP yearly in protection by 2024, immediately influenced by Serbia’s rising air and missile capability. The nation’s planners prioritized air protection, artillery modernization, and mechanized models able to countering regional energy asymmetries. Albania additionally hosts NATO investments and infrastructure upgrades, with modernization efforts designed to strengthen nationwide protection readiness whereas remaining aligned with alliance functionality and interoperability necessities.
Croatia has modernized inside the NATO framework, buying Rafale fighters, Bradley infantry autos, and Black Hawk helicopters. The nation has additionally has ordered Leopard 2 tanks, Bayraktar drones, and Excessive Mobility Artillery Rocket Techniques. These acquisitions aimed to preserve parity in regional air and mechanized energy, guaranteeing Croatia may match Serbia’s enhanced capabilities whereas remaining interoperable with NATO forces. Protection plans have emphasised readiness and operational flexibility, reinforcing credibility with out destabilizing the area. Croatia’s protection modernization additionally aligns with broader EU safety aims, illustrating how alliance membership shapes procurement and planning.
Slightly than large-scale modernization, each Montenegro and North Macedonia have centered on resilience — guaranteeing their forces can function successfully inside a NATO framework and underneath shifting regional circumstances formed by an rising arms race. Montenegro has emphasised speedy response forces and joint coaching, whereas it has bought two French patrol boats. North Macedonia has pursued modernization in keeping with alliance benchmarks, buying mechanized models and enhancing air surveillance capabilities. It has ordered U.S.-made joint mild tactical automobile and Stryker fight autos, Italian helicopters (4 AW149 and 4 AW169M), Turkish 105 mm Boran howitzers, and the French short-range air protection system Mistral 3.
Kosovo, missing NATO membership, has expanded the Kosovo Safety Power underneath NATO supervision. The nation has centered on constructing a reputable, seen deterrent able to speedy response to cross-border incursions. Planners explicitly thought of Serbia’s navy superiority when shaping Kosovo’s doctrine, coaching, and procurement. Kosovo has invested in drones and home ammunition manufacturing, enhancing strategic autonomy. Each determination — from unit measurement to tools alternative — mirrored the concept Serbia’s rising navy energy had narrowed Kosovo’s margin for error.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has responded extra cautiously to protection surges within the area, rising spending incrementally whereas prioritizing readiness, NATO interoperability the place possible, and coaching. Constrained by inside political fragmentation, the nation has centered on command-and-control enhancements and NATO-aligned workout routines.
For the non-NATO states within the area, particularly Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the navy build-ups current a classical safety dilemma: Defensive measures taken underneath uncertainty can heighten perceptions of insecurity for others within the absence of safety ensures. NATO members, in contrast, are embedded in a collective protection structure and their modernization is pushed primarily by alliance functionality and interoperability necessities. That stated, nationwide drive planning inside NATO has more and more factored in Serbia’s increasing air, missile, and armored capabilities and the ensuing shifts within the regional navy steadiness.
Protection Trade, Strategic Autonomy, and Exterior Affect
Past drive posture and procurement, the Western Balkans’ protection surge is more and more formed by the revival of home protection industries and the rising function of exterior suppliers.
Nationwide protection industries are reemerging as strategic instruments. Serbia’s Yugoimport SDPR spans ammunition, artillery, armored autos, and unmanned techniques, backed by state-supported exports and home funding. Croatia’s business, although smaller, aligns with NATO requirements, specializing in modernization, upkeep, and interoperability. Bosnia and Herzegovina focuses on ammunition and artillery manufacturing, signaling progress potential if political constraints ease. Albania, Kosovo, and Croatia have begun joint initiatives such because the Shota Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected automobile, reflecting a regional transfer towards selective self-reliance and sustainment capability.
Exterior powers form the strategic setting. Russia, China, Turkey, and Gulf states supply arms and advisory companies. Serbia retains sturdy ties with Russian and Chinese language suppliers, whereas Albania and Kosovo profit from NATO help and Turkish drone know-how. These competing influences complicate interoperability, improve uncertainty, and reinforce the area’s safety dilemma.
Industrial growth can strengthen standard deterrence whereas complicating signaling. Larger home manufacturing and procurement autonomy reduces vulnerability to exterior shocks, but speedy militarization with out transparency can escalate crises. These dynamics underscore that navy modernization within the Western Balkans is not solely a nationwide matter. Managing its dangers is determined by deliberate coverage decisions about transparency, coordination, and exterior engagement that may both stabilize the area or enable misperceptions to harden.
Coverage Implications and Strategic Selections
Whereas a Western Balkans arms race is properly underway, it displays preparation, not panic. Serbia’s early militarization set the tempo. Non-NATO neighbors akin to Bosnia and Kosovo responded cautiously to handle regional threat, whereas NATO members modernized in keeping with distinct alliance benchmarks and interoperability requirements.
A politics of restraint is required to interrupt the cycle of navy build-ups and cut back the danger of miscalculation and escalation. Concrete confidence-building measures together with expanded military-to-military communication — particularly, advance notification of main workout routines, participation in transparency mechanisms, and better disclosure of procurement plans — may assist. Furthermore, NATO can play a job by reinforcing deconfliction norms with non-member states, whereas the European Union can use accession conditionality to incentivize transparency and restraint. With out such measures, navy modernization, nonetheless defensive in intent, may proceed to generate mutual suspicion and escalation dangers within the area.
Each NATO and EU leaders have emphasised that normalization between Serbia and Kosovo is crucial to long-term regional stability, significantly given the alliance’s presence in Kosovo and neighboring member states. The European Union wields political and financial leverage primarily via conditionality, linking Serbia’s integration prospects to normalizing ties with Kosovo whereas geopolitically and economically pivoting from Russia. For its half, Washington views Balkan stability as integral to broader European safety, recognizing that misperception or unchecked militarization may create vulnerabilities exploitable by exterior powers.
Europe and the US ought to preserve a transparent understanding of Balkan navy developments and the way imbalances may have an effect on stability. Accountability on this context means adherence to alliance requirements for NATO members, transparency obligations for non-members, and restraint in political and navy signaling throughout the area. With out these guardrails, modernization dangers reinforcing insecurity quite than deterrence.
The Western Balkans will preserve stability solely underneath disciplined transparency and measured navy modernization. In any other case, miscalculation and misinterpretation may generate new crises amongst previous neighbors that might rapidly spin uncontrolled.
Blerim, Vela, Ph.D., served as chief of workers to the president of Kosovo from 2021 to 2023 and was a member of Kosovo’s Nationwide Safety Council. He holds a doctorate in up to date European research and writes on governance, protection, and safety in southeast Europe.
Picture: Unknown creator by way of Wikimedia Commons
