Serbia Turns Toward the West

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Serbia Turns Toward the West

Nikola Mikovic

6–8 minutes

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Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on July 13, 2026. (Photo by Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images.)

This article is brought to you by American Purpose, the magazine and community founded by Francis Fukuyama in 2020, which is proudly part of the Persuasion family.

Serbia—Russia’s strategic partner and historic ally—now aims to develop closer ties with Ukraine. While the European Union is encouraging Serbia’s foreign policy shift, the Kremlin is so far turning a blind eye to Belgrade’s outreach to Kyiv. But how does the United States view Serbia’s new diplomatic direction?

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić was in frequent contact with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, both by phone and regular in-person meetings. But after the West imposed sanctions on the Kremlin following Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, he significantly reduced his communication with his Russian counterpart.

At the same time, over the past four and a half years, Vučić has met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on several occasions. Most recently, on July 15, he traveled to Kyiv for the first time since the war broke out to participate in the fifth Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit.

Even though he was the only Southeast European leader who did not sign a joint declaration calling for increased international pressure on Russia, relations between Belgrade and Kyiv have continued to grow closer. Last week, Zelenskyy made his first-ever official visit to Serbia—a move that could, in the long-term, have a serious impact on Belgrade’s cooperation with Moscow.

Although Vučić said he did not discuss military cooperation between Serbia and Ukraine with Zelenskyy, Russia undoubtedly has reasons for concern. In 2024, despite its declaration of military neutrality adopted in 2007, the Balkan nation indirectly supplied Kyiv with ammunition worth €800 million. Such arrangements, according to former U.S. ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill, were coordinated directly from Washington. As he recently stressed, Serbia’s military cooperation with Ukraine is far more important for the United States than Belgrade’s decision not to formally join anti-Russian sanctions, regardless of the European Union’s repeated demands.

Moscow turned a blind eye when Serbian ammunition was sent to Ukraine, taking a year to react and accuse Belgrade of “betrayal.” Although Serbia, under pressure from Russia, halted ammunition exports, there is no guarantee that it will not eventually resume arms exports to Ukraine through third countries.

Given that Russia has demonstrated serious weaknesses in Ukraine and failed to achieve any of its strategic goals there, Belgrade has little reason to worry about potential retaliation from Moscow. Hypothetically, if Serbia continues to strengthen its ties with Ukraine, Russia could respond by ending its gas arrangements with the Balkan nation. Such a move could indeed have a serious impact on the Serbian economy, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas.

However, after the United States Senate passed a bill allowing sanctions to be imposed on countries that purchase Russian energy, Serbia may soon be forced to end its gas cooperation with Moscow anyway. After the Trump administration cut tariffs on Serbian goods entering the United States from 35 percent to zero, the last thing Belgrade needs is to face tariffs of up to 100 percent for continuing to buy Russian oil and gas.

Aware of that, Belgrade seems to be laying the groundwork for closer energy cooperation with the United States. But Vučić faces a problem: his voters have strong pro-Russian sentiments. Ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections, which could take place later this year or in 2027, he will have to find a way to gradually steer his voters away from their pro-Russian views and toward a more pro-American outlook.

The process seems to have already begun. On August 1, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), an American mixed martial arts promotion with a relatively limited following in Serbia, held its first-ever show in Belgrade. It seems that one of the main reasons for bringing the event to the Serbian capital was to provide a platform for Vučić’s supporters to display a large banner reading, “President Trump, Serbia welcomes you.” Trump later shared a photo of the banner on his Truth Social account.

Like Russia’s allies in Central Asia, Serbian officials have chosen to describe Vučić’s efforts to strengthen ties with Washington as a “balanced foreign policy,” a term often used to signify building a relationship with the United States. However, Vučić’s motivation is different to those countries’: while their economic reliance on Russia makes them fear Moscow’s reaction to this cooperation, Vučić’s concern is his voters.

This enthusiasm of Vučić’s base for Russia is why he is very unlikely to completely sever relations with Moscow, at least until the elections are over. In the meantime, if necessary, he can even travel to Moscow to meet with Putin, which his voters are likely to interpret as a sign of the Russian leader’s support for Vučić. Such a move would almost certainly help his party win the parliamentary elections, after which he could continue pursuing his policy of “pro-Western neutrality.”

The fact that Moscow did not immediately react to Zelenskyy’s visit to Belgrade and that pro-Kremlin analysts tried to downplay his meeting with Vučić suggests that Russia hopes to continue business as usual with Serbia. By remaining silent about Vučić’s moves, the Kremlin provides the Russian population with the illusion that Serbia is allegedly defying Western pressure and refusing to impose sanctions on Moscow.

Persuasion events

As long as Vučić remains on this course, he can count on Russia’s de facto support. At the same time, he is expected to keep flirting with Trump. But if he is eventually forced to make a definitive choice between Moscow and Washington, he will undoubtedly choose the latter. Until then, he is likely to continue balancing between all the major foreign powers vying for influence in the Balkans.

Nikola Mikovic is a freelance journalist, researcher, and analyst based in Serbia.

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Steve Jermy: THE COMING WAR WITH RUSSIA: A EUROPEAN ROAD TO RUIN

natyliesbaldwin.com

Steve Jermy: THE COMING WAR WITH RUSSIA: A EUROPEAN ROAD TO RUIN

11–14 minutes

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By Steve Jermy, Substack, 7/2/26

Steve Jermy is a Commodore (Rtd) Royal Navy. Naval commander, offshore energy CEO, strategic thinker.

Executive Summary

NATO, EU and E3 leaders are taking Europe down a path to be ready for war by 2030. In the light of European bellicosity, Russia could decide to start this sooner. If so, the US would be unwilling to fight Russia on Europe’s behalf. Unable to defend itself against Russia’s conventional ballistic/hypersonic missiles, Europe would suffer a rapid defeat and very high military losses. Even after suing for peace, destruction of Europe’s energy system would plunge Europe into economic crisis. Europeans should be invited publicly to debate these risks and have their views heard.

1. Introduction – Understanding War’s Nature

As European leaders’ calls to be ready for war with Russia by 2030 grow ever louder, we would do well to consider the advice of war’s greatest philosopher, General Carl von Clausewitz:

‘Wars must vary with the nature their motives and the situations that give rise to them. The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgement that the statesman and the commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something which is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive.’[1]

We should think hard on the nature of war with Russia: how our leaders’ public statements are heard in Russia; when such a war might start; how it might unfold; what its consequences and costs might be. This article builds one such scenario.

2. The Strategic Context

To begin, we must understand how we got here. It is clear, to anyone familiar with strategic history, that the roots of the crisis run back to 1989. When the Berlin Wall fell, there was an opportunity to build a durable, inclusive European security architecture — one that accommodated Russia’s legitimate security interests. That opportunity was squandered. Through the 1990s and 2000s, despite the original reassurances offered to Russia, NATO expanded relentlessly eastward. Prescient voices of caution — Kennan, Matlock, Burns, Kissinger, Mearsheimer— were dismissed or ignored. So too were Russia’s explicit and repeated red line warnings.

The Russo-Ukraine War must be understood in this context. The West is replete with conventional opinion that Russia intervened for imperial ambition. But all the credible evidence suggests that Russia went to war because it concluded — rightly or wrongly — that NATO expansion represented an existential threat. In Russia’s eyes, this was – and still is – a defensive war of survival.[2] Not surprising given that Kaja Kallas, EU foreign policy lead, has called publicly[3] for the breakup of Russia. Whatever one thinks of Russia’s methods, understanding its motivation is critical to understanding the nature of our future war with Russia.

3. Russia responds to European Escalation

Notwithstanding this fundamental insight, the publicly stated intention of the E3’s leaders — Macron, Merz and soon, no doubt, Burnham — is to increase the supply to Ukraine of long-range precision drones and cruise missiles, all capable of striking deep into Russian territory. In response, Moscow’s public warning is unambiguous: if this continues, directly targeting European production facilities will not be ruled out.

If E3 leaders choose not to take this warning seriously – a logical assumption, given that they have ignored all of Russia’s previous warnings – it is quite possible, even likely, that such a conflict could start this year, much earlier than Europe’s planned 2030. The second half of 2026 is thus taken as the start line for this scenario.

In September 2026, with its warnings ignored, and attacks into the Russian heartland increasing with E3 increased weapons deliveries, Russia acts. Conventional ballistic missile and hypersonic strikes destroy key E3 drone and missile production facilities in the Britain’s Midlands, the Ruhr, and outside Bordeaux. NATO Article 5 is invoked. But Article 5 does not require military action — it requires each member to take ‘such action as it deems necessary’. The shallowness of the guarantee upon which E3 leaders assumed they could rely is now exposed.

Spain and Hungary decline to commit forces. Italy, Poland, and several Eastern European members equivocate. More importantly, the White House, after recently appearing to shift to support operations against Russia now has urgent second thoughts. Having just lost a war in Iran, with badly depleted ammunition stockpiles, no domestic appetite for US troops fighting and dying on the other side of the Atlantic, and the mid-terms ahead, ‘Extending Russia’[4] does not look like such a good idea. The White House quickly concludes it is not in the US national interest to join a war with Russia on the European mainland. After spent years talking about strategic autonomy without creating it, the E3 now know what this means.

4. The First 3 Months of the War

Nevertheless, trapped in the political narrative they have constructed, the leaders of the E3 and smaller willing nations — perhaps the Dutch, Scandinavians, and Balts — respond.

The only place where an offensive is possible is in the air. But Europe’s strike packages now discover what Ukrainian pilots have known for years. Whilst a small proportion of European cruise missiles find their targets, the majority are destroyed by Russia’s layered and well-practiced S-400 and S-500 networks, which also exact an unsustainable toll on European pilots and aircraft. Without American suppression of enemy air defences – and perhaps even with it – there is no further prospect of achieving air superiority nor any effective counter attack.

In response to the air strikes, Russia takes the gloves off, determined once and for all to remove the threat from Europe to its people and homeland. Russia strikes airfields, training bases, dockyards, logistics hubs, and marshalling yards, inflicting 1,000s of military casualties amongst European forces before they can even deploy. The Europeans now learn the lesson that the US have just learnt in the Gulf – European militaries have very little protection against conventional ballistic attacks, and none against hypersonic missiles.[5]

The point is cruelly reinforced by simultaneous Russian strikes that systematically dismantle the Europe’s energy infrastructure — gas terminals, power stations, grid interconnectors, storage facilities — with the same clinical precision applied to Ukraine’s grid from 2022 onwards. Acutely vulnerable as the world’s largest regional hydrocarbon importer, at 12.8 million barrels per day,[6] Europe’s energy system is already under severe strain — the consequence of self-defeating sanctions on Russian oil and gas, recently compounded by the Strait of Hormuz energy shock.[7]

At sea, Russian submarines have deployed into the North Sea and Atlantic, and a wartime blockade has been announced. The mere threat of losing commercial vessels is enough for maritime insurers to withdraw cover and for shipping companies to stand down. Europe’s hydrocarbon imports grind to a halt and energy systems start to fail. The lights begin to go out. More importantly, without diesel, Europe’s farming, fishing and food logistics systems fail. Although only 2-3 months into the conflict, Europe’s economic situation is now perilous.

4. The Ceasefire, Costs and Consequences

Faced with the binary choice of escalating with nuclear weapons or accepting defeat, British and French leaders pause. Both nations’ nuclear deterrents exist to deter nuclear attack on their own territories, not to take nationally suicidal action to rescue a failing conventional campaign. Meanwhile, the US – having made its position on the sidelines clear and now acutely worried about the risk of nuclear war with Russia – is urgently working with both sides to bring the war to a close. Which can only be done on Russia’s terms. Under intense pressure from the US and the smaller European nations, E3, NATO and EU leaders sue for peace.

Only 3 months into the conflict, the human costs are already severe. Military casualties are orders of magnitude higher than Western and NATO losses in 25 years of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But military surrender is not the end, just the beginning.

With its energy system shattered, European industrial production is collapsing, unemployment is surging. Europe’s largest countries, other than Germany, are already shouldering debt-to-GDP ratios over 100%[8]. European public finances buckle then crack under the rapidly increasing burden of emergency energy subsidies, future reconstruction costs, collapsing stock markets, bond market runs leading to higher government interest costs, and lost tax revenues.

The failed state that is Ukraine provides indisputable evidence of what comes next. An economic contraction of 10% is the conventional criterion for a depression[9]: Ukraine’s is over 30%. The US is fiscally unable – and the Rest of the World politically unwilling – to offer a Marshall Plan. Thus, Europe faces alone an economic contraction greater than the Great Depression.

The political consequences are no less profound. The coalitions that launched the war collapse, and the leaders who led the charge are rapidly and ruthlessly deposed. NATO and the European Union, both judged complicit in the war’s commission, are irreparably fractured. Populist and nationalist movements surge. Social contracts between elites and the peoples, built over generations and in societies that had not experienced war on their own soil since 1945, strain to breaking point. Europe, once a coherent political and economic region, now faces a dystopian reckoning.

5. Conclusion – The Choice Europeans Face

If this scenario is plausible – even remotely so – are the risks the E3 leaders are inviting us to accept worth it? Without any public discussion?

There is an alternative: it’s called diplomacy. Not the diplomacy of ultimatums, nor meaningless peace conferences from which one belligerent is triumphantly excluded. But rather the diplomacy of honest conversation, in which each side listens to the other. Russia’s security needs are not difficult to understand. Because they have been repeating them for 20 years, almost ad nauseam for those of us who were prepared to listen and hear. A neutral Ukraine. No NATO membership. Real security guarantees. All of which Russia was willing to offer and Ukraine willing to accept in March 2022 – before Zelensky was persuaded otherwise by Boris Johnson and Joe Biden.

As General André Beaufre wrote: ‘In war the loser deserves to lose because his defeat must result from errors of thinking, made either before or during the conflict’. Over the first quarter of this 21st Century, Western leaders in general and Europe leaders in particular have a consistent track record of ‘errors in thinking’ – as our failed operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine unequivocally prove. This time though the stakes for Europeans could not be higher.

To conclude, before they march us onwards towards war, our leaders owe us two things. First, an honest, public, strategic assessment of the risks to which this course of action could expose us. Second, an opportunity for our views to be sought and our voices to be heard. After all, it is we, not they, who will be the ones expected to fight the war and bear its costs and consequences.

The choice we Europeans face is simple. Should we change course toward peace, and begin a difficult but honest diplomatic conversation with Russia? Or should we let our leaders – guided by a political narrative that they have constructed and ignoring the existential risks set out here – continue to lead us onwards towards war? As did their illustrious predecessors, a century or so ago, in the Summer of 1914?

telegraf.rs

Vucic thanks Trump for respect showed towards Serbia

Dragica Ranković

3–4 minutes

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Photo: Tanjug/AP, Tanjug/Dragan Kujundyic

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has thanked US President Donald Trump for the respect he showed toward Serbia, stressing that relations between the two countries "will only move upward".

"I thank President Donald Trump for the respect he showed to our country and I believe that relations between Serbia and America will only move up," Vucic wrote on his Instagram account, as part of a post that shows Trump shared Vucic's interview with Breitbart on his Truth Social network.

In that interview Vucic among other things stated that Trump is much more popular in Serbia than any other US leader.

Vucic gave interview before leaving for Beijing last week, and it was published on Sunday. The Serbian president said that Trump enjoys "by far the most support" in Serbia compared to anywhere else in Europe and that not even US states like West Virginia, Kentucky or Louisiana can compare to the favorable stance on Trump in Serbia.

"What I can say is that I was surprised by some comments made in the press in the United States, where some other European countries were highlighted in the past as 'Donald Trump' strongholds, because it was very obvious to all of us that in Serbia he had by far the greatest support, during the election campaign, and that support even at that time exceeded 75 percent of those who declared themselves - which was not the case even in the United States. Nowhere else," said Vucic.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)

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Vucic: Of course I will not participate in celebration of Montenegro's secession from Serbia

Dragica Ranković

3–4 minutes

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Printscreen: TanjugLIve

President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic said today that he received an invitation to participate in what he said would be a "glamorous celebration" on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the secession of Montenegro from Serbia, butstressed that he will not accept the invitation because he loves his country.

"I received an invitation to participate in the glamorous celebration of secession from my Serbia. Of course, I will not participate in that. I love Serbia more than anything in the world and to celebrate something like that would be disgraceful, a spit in the face of myself and my people. And let them celebrate whatever they want," Vucic said, responding to a journalist asking about the 20 years of Montenegro's independence, and the position of the Serb people in Montenegro.

Vucic noted it is Montenegro's right to organize celebrations, bring in global stars and the rest of it.

"I just want the citizens of Serbia to know one thing - that they celebrate secession from us, from Serbia, so glamorously and with such joy. I have nothing more to add on that issue. I would have a lot to say about the incompetence of our leadership from that period, but they made that choice. I see that they (Montenegro) are very happy to have left the Serbs and Serbia. I wish them success and luck," added Vucic.

When it comes to the position of Serbs in Montenegro, the president said that it is very strange that the Serbs do not have the right to use Serbian as an official language, despite the fact it is the dominant language in Montenegro, as well as that Europe is not reacting to that, yet insists on every other thing.

"I'm sure that the majority of Serbs (in Montenegro) want the closest relations with Serbia, and you could have heard the other ones just yesterday justifying NATO's aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ, Serbia and Montenegro), all in a twisted, mumbled manner. Let them continue with their endevour, I wish them all the luck in the world," said Vucic.

He stressed that Serbia needs to move forward, to have the highest growth rate, to achieve great feats and great results in terms of the economy.

"And I am sure that not only Serbs, but also other citizens of Montenegro will always feel they are in a brotherly country when they are in Serbia," said President Vucic.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)

Ambassador Vesko Garčević Analyzes Shifting Power in the Balkans

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Garčević Analyzes Shifting Power in the Balkans

~3 minutes

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Ambassador Vesko Garčević

Upon the invitation of the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), the largest undergraduate international relations program at Tufts University, and the Tufts Slavic and Eastern European Association, Ambassador Vesko Garčević, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Pardee School, delivered a guest lecture on March 3 about the current state of geopolitics in the Balkans.

Addressing the role of global powers in the region, Ambassador Garcevic characterized the United States' approach as sporadic, driven by short-term interests, and focused more on stabilization than on a strategic response. This policy, described as "gradual disengagement," has been the result of several events in the region and around the world over the past 25 years: the end of the Yugoslav wars; the European Union's Thessaloniki Summit and the EU membership perspective offered to the region; the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia; and, finally, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

With American interests shifting away from the region, the influence of the Russian Federation and China has gradually increased. He highlighted the role of the regional orthodox churches which serve as a powerful connector between the Russian Orthodox Church and the region by providing narratives aligned with the Kremlin's strategic interests.

According to Garcevic, the EU still possesses the strongest incentive – the EU membership perspective. Therefore, it should be more agile and more robustly involved in the regional affairs. Within the framework of the accession to the EU, for the regional EU candidates, Brussels should design particular, tailored programs with clear, measurable, achievable benchmarks coupled with gradual integration in the EU structure.

Vesko Garčević is a professor of the practice of international studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Europe. An expert on multilateral issues, Garčević is the co-author of Montenegro and Serbia: A Velvet Divorce? (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) which explores the divergent past between Serbia and Montenegro between 1988 and 2023. To read more about his work and accomplishments, visit his faculty profile.

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Serbia is presented with a new chance for rapid progress

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niSerbia is presented with a new chance for rapid progress

Milan Grujić

32–41 minutes

Serbia is in a fever dream. The malaise that has shaken the country for more than a year now threatens to paralyze even the little life that had only just begun to sprout after the ill-fated 1990s. Two decades of slow, uneven progress brought us to the edge of the abyss into which we were thrown by the hell of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, yet our inability to shape ourselves into a modern and stable political society threatens to drag us back into the pit. There are many reasons, but the most important is the absence of consensus among the elites on what goal we, as a society, should pursue. Quite simply, we do not know where we are going, and that is why all the roads we have taken over the past decades look winding and dark (Oasis). If we knew our destination, perhaps even a wrong road might eventually lead us there. After all, the Earth is round.

Serbia, in fact, persistently refuses to be part of Europe, convinced it is far more than a single puzzle piece on the map of the Old Continent. Deluded into believing it is larger and more significant than it truly is, it is paralyzed by constant attempts to prove its own superiority, despite the lack of even the faintest evidence, let alone anything more substantial. At times it seems the only task of the Serbian intellectual elite is to perpetuate the idea of "higher value," which then easily spills into everyday life, enabling politics to manipulate citizens and the Serbian people, a dynamic that can be, and often is, extremely dangerous.

You Can't Be Everyone's Partner

An obvious manifestation of this unfounded sense of superiority is the so-called "four chairs" or "four pillars" policy, formed almost twenty years ago, which was supposed to lead us, in the footsteps of Josip Broz, toward a bright future. Not only did it lead nowhere, it intensified the spotlight on Serbia's delusions, most of which are now clearer than ever. Small states, historically, have never been able to pursue truly independent policies, and every such attempt ended in failure, stagnation, or the suffering of their citizens. Serbia is "great" only in the fantasies of its elite, and that fantasy easily spreads to the public, while a sober view reveals a largely insignificant country on the global stage, a relevant factor only in the fragmented Western Balkans, a region that is granted importance as a package deal. And precisely because of that fragmentation, and the region's inability to consolidate, the Western Balkans has most often served merely as small change in great-power competition, small change that sometimes slips into a mere tip.

You cannot be good with everyone, and you never could. Balancing is possible only in periods of relatively stable international relations, but every crisis produces polarization in which small states have only one real option: to choose a side, even if it turns out to be the wrong one. Is it fair? No. But that is how it works.

The current geopolitical earthquake points Serbia, more clearly than ever, toward the conclusion that its only viable alternative is drawn on the map itself, and the map says plainly that Serbia is part of Europe, therefore part of the European Union. Serbia can do nothing about that, regardless of all its flailing, which, whatever the trajectory, only increases the number of bruises on its body. This situation does not fit the psychological profile of a self-styled giant, but that brings us back to the core problem: the delusion itself. If we assessed ourselves realistically, it would never occur to us to sneak between the legs of four giant elephants rather than take our place in the basket on the back of one of them.

NIN / Jugoslav Vlahović

NIN / Jugoslav Vlahović

Kalimero

The geopolitical crisis is enormous. The world order is changing before our eyes, once again offering us the intoxicating charms of an excess of history, while we once more shout in confusion: "That's unfair." The West is losing the dominance it built over centuries after the Industrial Revolution for several reasons. Among them is the hard-to-explain desire to further humiliate a defeated opponent, to break it into pieces if possible, something clearly visible in the approach toward Russia and in what unfolded after the Cold War. It did not take much intelligence to understand that constant pressure on Russia would produce a counterstrike, which, as so often with Russia, would be stronger and more brutal than necessary.

The second problem is faith in the mantra that the market and democracy would preserve the West's monopoly. That illusion returned like a boomerang through China's spectacular economic and technological rise, a country that is not a democracy and in which state, that is, planned management of the economy remains essential. In fact, China's ascent is the most important reason behind much of what is happening in the world today. A state that has absorbed a huge share of global manufacturing has become a dominant international power.

The West had no coherent collective response to this reality, so the Americans decided to act alone. The Trump administration began retreating into its own "backyard", which, predictably, extends far beyond U.S. borders, from Greenland, across Canada, to the northern shores of South America. Suddenly, Canada and Europe found themselves in trouble. Yet after initial confusion, they reacted with striking decisiveness to Trump's threats.

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech in Davos that many analysts immediately described as historic. He said "the old order will not return" and that "we should not mourn it," adding that "from collapse we can build something bigger, better, stronger and fairer." He called on the "middle powers" to cooperate, urging them to "stop invoking the rules-based international order as if it still functions." Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, was also clear, and the doubly clear "no" from Canada and the European Union forced Trump to back down. The next day he reduced his remarks largely to self-praise about strong economic indicators in the first year of his term, spiced with complaints that Americans, allegedly, never asked anything of their NATO allies, and now, the first time they ask for something, something so "small" as Canada and Greenland, these ungrateful partners refuse. A few insults toward Europeans followed, essentially an expression of helplessness after a paper placed on his desk days earlier in which the EU threatened tariffs worth $250 billion, precisely targeted at the so-called swing states that decide who governs America.

PROFIMEDIA / Ognjen Stevanovic / Alamy

PROFIMEDIA / Ognjen Stevanovic / Alamy

The "Serbian World"

In the coming years, perhaps decades, the bloc division into an American, Russian, Chinese and European world is likely to harden into barriers that a state of Serbia's size and weight will not be able to jump. Carney spoke openly about these blocs in Davos. Small states will have their best chance at prosperity if they place their "world" inside one of the larger ones, and understanding that our so-called "Serbian world" can survive only alongside the European one may save us from a dangerous power game that could threaten the survival of both the Serbian nation and the Serbian state. The elephants have begun to dance, and their dance can easily become a trance. No Kalimero-style moralizing, so common in Serbia's public space, and certainly no political shell game, will rescue us if we keep pretending to be clever and pushing on as before.

The real question is what we actually want. Europe remains the best place to live in the world, and a lack of awareness that, in the latest geopolitical reshuffle, we could hardly have landed a better hand cannot be excused by the desire for everyone to be happy, for Serbia to be on good terms with everyone, and for world peace to prevail. There is no rational explanation for Serbia's refusal to accept the fact that it belongs to the European family, that we are where we are, that we are like those around us, neither worse nor any better, and that only together with them can we secure prosperity.

And here we return to the elite, which must lead this people and this state. Yet at least half of it currently revels in the European Union's problems, chuckling from the sidelines at the difficulties European leaders face with Trump and the war in Ukraine, firing off at least one snide quip a day.

The absence of awareness of the essential importance of joint action, of the necessity of a national agreement, even if it took a year to reach, is a sure way to keep languishing at the bottom. Failure to understand that we must have a common goal, however broadly defined, say, a prosperous EU member state capable of meeting most of its citizens' needs, opens space for a cynical game in which politics and the economic and security networks tied to it will always be ready to sacrifice a significant part of the nation and the state for their own interests. If we do not know together who we are and where we are going, why would each of us not pull the rope in our own direction? For more than two and a half millennia Aesop's motif, the immeasurable strength of a bundle compared to a single twig, has appeared in the oral and written traditions of many nations, including the Serbian one. Yet we still do not understand it, not as a national community and, consequently, not at many lower, yet important, levels. The current political opposition is not the topic of this text, but it is a telling example. It is hard to explain the fact that Serbia has twenty opposition parties, the strongest polling at around five percent, while fifteen are below one percent. A functional democratic system requires at least five parties capable of becoming, after elections, either the leading governing party or a credible coalition partner.

In all of this, it is crucial to understand that achieving broad agreement on national goals does not mean imposing the view of any majority faction. Any such attempt would be like jamming a stick into the wheel of the vehicle carrying us through these murky times. Serbia must be plural in order to develop normally. Any attempt to repaint it in a single color will bring new suffering and misfortune and, at the very least, a delay that will be hard to make up for.

People think differently in every society, so it is difficult to understand why only Serbian elites cannot determine the main direction in which the state should move, or at least strive to move. What is it that Bulgarians and Romanians, Czechs and Poles, Croats and Albanians, Slovenes and Portuguese, indeed so many Europeans, know that we Serbs do not? How is it possible that European integration is seriously questioned only in Serbia and the Republika Srpska? That only here do polls show a majority not supporting membership in the Union? Or perhaps we know something no other nation in Europe knows. It is possible, but extraordinarily unlikely.

Serbia must seize the opportunity that will present itself in the coming years. The war in Ukraine and China's economic dominance have pushed European elites toward a partial realization that Europe will have to confront military and political giants that are not well disposed toward it, and U.S. policy since Trump's return has made it clear that Europe will have to do so largely on its own, perhaps with Canada. Politicians and the economic structures behind them, both in Brussels and in European capitals, are beginning to understand that addressing the Union's internal problems is a priority, and the Western Balkans is one of those internal problems. A quick solution would spare Europe unnecessary tension and free resources for dealing with the giants mentioned above. The Union does not need a black hole inside its own space, and that fact will open a new possibility for Serbia to advance rapidly toward membership. We should not miss this chance.

But anyone who knows us also knows we should not celebrate in advance. Wading through the muddy puddles of our own delusions is our favorite national discipline.

telegraf.rs

Vucic:  We want strategic partnership with the US, but Serbia is on the European continent

Dragica Ranković

4–5 minutes

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Photo: Tanjug/WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/PASCAL BITZ

President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic said in Davos that an extended session of the Government will be held on Saturday and that he believes Serbia will fulfill two formal demands made by the US and be able to finally start talking about a strategic partnership with that country, but he pointed out that Serbia is located on the European continent.

Vucic told RTS - when asked to comment on US president's envoy for special missions Richard Grenell stating on X that that Europe is in trouble and that he should follow the US, not the European path - that Grenell is a serious and responsible man and that he once liked his approach to solving problems in the Balkans by solving economic issues.

"I had a good conversation with (EU Commissioner) Marta Kos today (Wednesday), we spoke about Serbia's European path. Now if some new alternatives are imposed, the US economy is stronger, better, growing faster. We are on the European continent. You cannot show weakness and switch to a different direction when you face the first problem," added Vucic.

According to him, Serbia has the opportunity to accelerate its EU path to a significant extent.

"You know that I'm not someone who is overly optimistic, that I'm not someone who is a eurofanatic, but someone who is a realist and very pragmatic and who has always been guided above all by the interests of Serbia and our national and state interests. In all these difficult moments, I also see an opportunity for Serbia to present itself in a different light and that we could have an even more favorable position for our country in the international environment," Vucic said when asked where Serbia stands at the moment and how it will position itself in the current circumstances.

Vucic said that Serbia will preserve traditional friendships with China and Russia and pointed out that this will not be easy.

"I am ready to discuss these matters with our political opponents, too, to present my knowledge to them, because it will happen, I believe that in the next two or three months there will be some kind of cessation of the conflict in Ukraine. Not the permanent end of the war, the cessation of the conflict. One of the conditions set by Volodymyr Zelensky is that Ukraine becomes, and that this be part of the peace plan for Ukraine, for it to become a full member of the European Union from January 1, 2027," added Vucic.

The president of Serbia noted that this is a key condition for Zelensky to be able to somehow present the concessions to his people and that the EU must be considerate, but that there is significant opposition to all this within the bloc.

"Tomorrow (Thursday) the European Council is meeting. First, let's see what official position they will take, judging by the words of the Belgian prime minister and many others I met here, that position will be extremely harsh. Of course, some countries will try to oppose it and you will already see the rift emerging there, you could see that by who was present today and who was absent on purpose. So, a lot of things are getting decided about over the night," said President Vucic.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)