Bałkany w momencie multipolarnym

The unipolar planet did not collapse in a single rupture. It was eroded through a series of deliberate choices, most visibly during Donald Trump’s presidency, erstwhile the United States recalibrated its function from guarantor of the global strategy to interest-driven competitor. Trump did not invent multipolarity but his administration accelerated it by questioning alliance commitments, transactionalizing safety guarantees and signalling that American power would no longer automatically underwrite regional orders it erstwhile sustained. The message was unmistakable: the United States would stay powerful, but no longer predictably hegemonic.

For the Western Balkans, the consequences have been profound. The region’s post-war trajectory rested on the presumption of a coherent Euro-Atlantic order anchored by US leadership, NATO expansion and eventual EU enlargement. Multipolarity has not dismantled those structures but it has weakened their gravitational pull. In their place a fresh environment is likely to appear defined by fragmented safety guarantees, overlapping spheres of influence and increasing uncertainty about where the region yet fits.

These changes straight could form how Balkan states specify their interests, choose partners and govern themselves. They besides test whether US and European strategy can inactive stabilize peripheral regions in an era of great-power competition.

From hierarchy to strategical ambiguity

In the unipolar era, the Balkans operated within a comparatively clear safety hierarchy. NATO’s credibility, reinforced by US military dominance and diplomatic primacy, imposed limits on escalation. Disputes persisted, but they unfolded under the presumption that major force would trigger external intervention.

Multipolarity has weakened that constraint.

The United States remains the decisive safety actor for Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia, yet its strategical bandwidth is increasingly conditioned by competition with China and the war in Ukraine. The European Union wields economical weight but lacks coercive credibility. Russia, though degraded by its invasion of Ukraine, retains adequate disruptive capacity to block settlements and embolden spoilers, peculiarly in Serbia and Republika Srpska. Türkiye projects influence through defence cooperation and political ties, while Hungary increasingly shields illiberal partners from EU force and blocks consensus from within.

The consequence is not balance but fragmentation. safety guarantees are no longer singular or absolute. For the Balkans, this raises the baseline hazard of miscalculation. Serbia’s calibrated force on Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s recurring constitutional brinkmanship, and the region’s renewed defence spending all reflect a strategical environment in which red lines appear little fixed and enforcement little certain. This dynamic sits squarely within current Washington and Brussels debates over NATO credibility. Deterrence erodes first at the margins and the Balkans are increasingly 1 of those margins.

Spheres of influence without rules

Multipolar systems do not destruct spheres of influence; they multiply and blur them. Unlike the Cold War, today’s spheres are informal, fluid and overlapping, producing ambiguity alternatively than order. They are transactional alternatively than territorial, negotiated issue by issue alternatively than enforced by clear boundaries.

Kosovo and Albania are firmly embedded in the US-NATO safety sphere, trading autonomy for predictability. Montenegro and North Macedonia have followed a akin path, though their home politics stay exposed to external pressure. Serbia has opted for strategical hedging, balancing EU economical integration with Russian diplomatic backing and Chinese investment. Bosnia and Herzegovina exists as a fragmented state pulled simultaneously toward competing external poles.

These divergent trajectories matter. States that anchor clearly gain safety but accept tighter conditionality. States that hedge preserve manoeuvring space but absorb strategical risk. Serbia’s multi-vector strategy has maximized short-term leverage, yet it has besides deepened dependence on external veto players, limiting freedom of action in moments of crisis. Bosnia’s overlapping alignments have frozen improvement and institutionalized dysfunction.

Multipolarity rewards ambiguity at the elite level while punishing it at the systemic level.

How multipolarity rewrites abroad policy

More than anything, multipolarity changes the logic of abroad policy for tiny states. Under unipolarity, alignment was the dominant strategy. advancement toward NATO or the EU produced cumulative safety and economical benefits. Deviations carried clear costs. In a multipolar system, alignment competes with hedging, selective non-alignment, and issue-based bargaining.

For Western Balkan states, abroad policy is no longer only about choosing partners. It is besides about managing exposure.

Foreign policy has become modular alternatively than directional. States align with different powers regarding security, energy, infrastructure and diplomacy, frequently simultaneously. This approach increases short-term bargaining power, but it reduces strategical clarity erstwhile crises erupt.

Serbia exemplifies this dilemma. Its cooperation with NATO, coexists with diplomatic alignment with Russia and economical dependence on the European Union, while Chinese investment fills infrastructure gaps with minimal political conditionality. This configuration maximizes short-term autonomy, but it besides undermines strategical credibility. In moments of crisis, ambiguity weakens credibility with all partners at once.

Kosovo and Albania have chosen the other path. Their abroad policy is consolidated almost exclusively around the US-NATO axis. They late became founding associate of president Trump’s initiative Board of Peace. This reduces vulnerability to external coercion but ties their safety straight to western credibility. In an era of alliance fatigue and global distraction, that dependence carries its own risks.

Bosnia and Herzegovina represents the most dangerous variant: abroad policy fragmentation internalized within the state itself. Competing external alignments map straight onto interior political divisions, transforming diplomacy into a zero-sum home contest. Multipolarity does not simply complicate Bosnia’s diplomacy – it entrenches paralysis.

Multipolarity rewards tactical agility, but it punishes strategical incoherence. tiny states gain leverage erstwhile large powers compete, but they lose protection erstwhile competition intensifies.

Why trade no longer buys stability

One of the central assumptions of the post-Cold War order – that economical interdependence restrains conflict – has collapsed. Russia’s war against Ukraine demonstrated that deep trade ties do not prevent war erstwhile safety imperatives dominate. It besides redirected western attention and resources eastward, reinforcing perceptions in the Balkans that regional stableness is no longer a first-order priority. Nowhere is this paradox clearer than in the region’s trade structure.

The European Union remains the Western Balkans’ chief economical anchor, absorbing about two-thirds of goods trade, with Germany and Italy central across all six economies. Supply chains bind North Macedonia to German manufacture and Italian firms stay embedded in Albania. Serbia functions as a regional hub for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia, while Albania and Kosovo deepen exchange and Bosnia sustains steady trade with Serbia and Croatia. The region is commercially integrated with Europe and interwoven within itself yet this dense web of trade has not translated into political alignment or strategical discipline.

The Balkans now operate under this logic. Chinese infrastructure financing, Russian energy leverage, EU marketplace access and Turkish defence cooperation function on parallel tracks, mostly disconnected from political restraint. Serbia can deepen trade with the EU while aligning diplomatically with Moscow. Bosnia can receive EU backing while tolerating secessionist rhetoric backed from abroad. Hungary can undermine EU unity while benefitting from EU cohesion resources.

This decoupling weakens western conditionality. erstwhile alternate patrons exist, improvement becomes negotiable. This is the applicable consequence of EU enlargement fatigue: erstwhile accession appears distant or hollow, its disciplining power erodes and multipolarity fills the vacuum.

Governance as strategical vulnerability

Multipolarity reshapes home politics as much as abroad policy. Hedging strategies empower executives, marginalize institutions and reduce transparency. erstwhile abroad policy becomes transactional, it empowers elites capable of bargaining across multiple external patrons while weakening parliamentary oversight and organization checks.

Across the Balkans, this dynamic has lowered the cost of democratic backsliding. Media capture, safety sector politicization and executive centralization no longer trigger decisive consequences. External competition reduces the likelihood that illiberal practices will trigger meaningful external consequences

For tiny states, weak governance is not simply a democratic concern. It is simply a strategical vulnerability. In a competitive order, interior fragility invites external manipulation. States that hollow out their institutions in pursuit of flexibility frequently discover they have become arenas alternatively than actors.

Choices inactive matter

Multipolarity constrains but it does not absolve. Western Balkan states are not passive terrain. Their choices to anchor, hedge or obstruct will form whether the region remains unchangeable or becomes a responsibility line in a more competitive world.

Clear alignment reduces uncertainty but demands reform. Hedging maximizes autonomy but amplifies long-term risk. Obstructionism yields leverage but corrodes organization resilience. no of these paths are cost-free and the illusion that tiny states can indefinitely extract benefits from all sides is increasingly untenable.

For Washington and Brussels, the lesson is equally clear. stableness in the Balkans will not be preserved by rhetoric alone. It requires credible safety commitments, revived enlargement pathways and a designation that multipolar competition makes neglect more dangerous, not less.

The unipolar minute has passed. The fresh multipolar order is not a pause in past but a stress test. In the Balkans, the result will uncover whether western strategy can inactive form the margins of order or whether those margins will one more time harden into responsibility lines.

Dr. Blerim Vela served as Chief of Staff to the president of Kosovo from 2021 to 2023 and as a associate of Kosovo’s National safety Council. He holds a PhD in Contemporary European Studies from the University of Sussex and writes on governance, transatlantic affairs, defence and safety in South-East Europe.