Timothy Less is the Senior Advisor for Geopolitics at the Centre for Risk Studies at the Judge Business School and convenes the study group in geopolitical risk analysis at the Centre for Geopolitics of the University of Cambridge. The views expressed in this article are his own.

Why make an opponent of an ally? That is a question which should weigh on the minds of policymakers in the West as they impose new rounds of punishment on the Serbs in the form of sanctions on figures in Republika Srpska and the Serbian energy company NIS—even more so when it is the West itself that pays the price for this hostility.

 

At this point in time the strategic priority of the U.S. and its allies is to prevail in the emerging struggle for global supremacy with great power rivals such as China and Russia, and to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world in which such powers shape global politics. To this end, the West must maximize the strength of its own position and prevent Russia and China from strengthening theirs.

From enmity to strategic alliance? U.S. and Serbian soldiers during their joint “Vigilant Wolf ” exercise in 2019. / Photo: Guliver Image/Getty Images

In foreign policy terms, this has many implications. But in Eastern Europe, a borderland in which the great powers have traditionally vied for influence, the struggle for supremacy means shoring up relationships with the remaining unintegrated peoples, who would like to join the Western camp, rather than pushing them into closer alliance with Russia and China which can then make gains at the West’s expense.

 

This applies above all to the Serbs, the most populous, powerful, and important nation in the Western Balkans, who want to be part of the EU and the Western security alliance but, at least as matters stand, maintain cordial relations with both Russia and China and hedge between east and west.

 

Brought into the Western fold, the Serbs could align their stance with the U.S. and the EU and augment their power, contributing territory, manpower, resources, and diplomatic capital to the struggle against the West’s opponents. The West could be relieved of the need to maintain thousands of troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, intended to face down the Serbian military. Conversely, the Serbs could prevent Russia and China from establishing a political and economic foothold in a strategic region surrounded on all sides by the EU.

 

Alternatively, the Serbs can provide just such a foothold, strengthening Russia and China economically by buying their products, selling their resources to the two powers, and inviting Russian and Chinese companies to establish business operations on their territory, deepening their political influence. The Serbs can support their positions on contentious issues such as Ukraine and Taiwan in return for Russian and Chinese support for their own political goals, especially blocking international recognition of Kosovo. And they can provide validation for Russia and China’s model of authoritarian politics.

 

The choice of which way the Serbs swing ultimately lies with the West and its call on whether they draw them in or push the Serbs away. Unfortunately, the West—and especially its leading powers, the U.S., the UK, and Germany—is making the wrong call. Instead of seeking to shore up relations with the Serbs with the aim of expanding and consolidating the Western camp, the three are actively pursuing a policy of confrontation which has served only to alienate the Serbs and thereby undermine the West’s overarching strategic goal.

 

In Serbia itself, the West has insisted that Belgrade reach a deal with Kosovo that effectively requires it to recognize the breakaway state within its existing borders, rather than partitioning Kosovo along ethnic lines as Serbs would like. According to a peace plan pushed by the EU and backed by the U.S., the Serb-populated north of Kosovo will remain under the sovereignty of Priština with only limited autonomy, denying Serbia any meaningful compensation for the loss of Kosovo. 

 

To compel the Serbs to surrender the territory, the EU has effectively frozen Serbia’s integration process and threatened sanctions if Belgrade refuses to implement its deal, including a suspension of development funds. The U.S. has gone even further, imposing rounds of sanctions on leading officials and politicians on the pretext they are corrupt, and subverting Serbia’s internal politics by backing the liberal opposition.

 

Meanwhile, in Kosovo itself, the West has backed the Albanians, supporting—or at least acquiescing to—raids by armed police into the north, intended to break the power of local Serb rulers and, according to Serbia, to force the Serbian population to leave; and sponsoring efforts to make a reality of Kosovo’s independence by means of its admission to international institutions such as the Council of Europe. 

 

In Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia’s two autonomous entities, the U.S. and the UK have imposed rounds of sanctions on parts of the political leadership and businesses linked to the government, while Germany has suspended €120 million in funding for four infrastructure projects intended to promote the entity’s development. In 2023, the European Parliament went as far as to call for EU-wide sanctions on the Bosnian Serbs.

 

The three have continually pushed for a weakening of Republika Srpska’s autonomy, most recently via a law that the High Representative, a colonial-style governor appointed after the war in Bosnia ended in 1995, is threatening to impose that defines public property inherited from the old Yugoslavia as belonging to the central state rather than the entity. 

 

They have backed an edict issued in 2023 by the High Representative that outlaws non-compliance with the High Representative’s edicts, and the subsequent trial of Republika Srpska’s President, Milorad Dodik, who now faces expulsion from political life and up to five years in prison for violating this edict.

 

In May 2024, Germany also sponsored a resolution at the UN General Assembly, which called for an international day of remembrance for the victims of genocide in Srebrenica, in an effort to undermine international support for the Bosnian Serbs with a timely reminder of their original sin.

 

Punishment of the Serbs also extends to Montenegro where the U.S., the UK, and Germany have openly opposed the participation in government of the two main ethnic-Serbian parties—despite Serbs comprising a third of the population, and in contravention of Washington, London, and Berlin’s purported commitment to the global spread of democracy.

 

Unsurprisingly, the result of this pressure is to generate resentment among the Serbs towards the West and push them into the arms of its great power rivals. The Serbs have responded by tightening their political relations with Moscow, including active diplomatic contacts and high-level visits to the country; Mr. Dodik, in particular, has been a regular visitor to Russia where he has several times met President Vladimir Putin.

 

Serbia has refused to impose economic sanctions on Russia, instead continuing to buy its energy, court investment from the country and allow its planes to land at Belgrade airport. And they have refused to align with the West’s position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ensuring there is no European consensus on its illegitimacy. On the contrary, figures such as Mr. Dodik have echoed the Kremlin’s line about the presence of fascists in Kyiv and endorsed Russia’s annexation of eastern Ukraine.

 

The Serbs have also drawn politically closer to China. Senior politicians from Belgrade, including the country’s President Aleksandar Vučić, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, and other government ministers, have made repeated trips to Beijing where they have proclaimed their ‘ironclad’ friendship with the Chinese and endorsed its One China policy. So too has Republika Srpska’s Prime Minister and others from Mr. Dodik’s SNSD party. 

 

This tightening of political links has been buttressed by a deepening of economic relations. Serbia has recently signed a free-trade agreement with China and various memoranda on investment under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative that opens the country up to Chinese companies, which now represent the leading lights of Serbia’s economy. In doing so, Serbia has effectively put its resources at the disposal of China including, potentially, its massive reserves of lithium, while giving China a significant inroad into the European market via Serbia’s free-trade agreement with the EU.

 

Alongside this consolidation of relations with Russia and China, the Serbs have made a broader effort to reach out to countries in the Global South, from ASEAN to the Gulf and Iran. They have also found common cause with Turkey and Hungary, two states which are formally part of the Western camp via their membership in NATO (and in Hungary’s case, also the EU) which the West has similarly alienated.

 

For their part, Russia and China have been content to reciprocate these overtures by the Serbs. In Serbia, the two have repeatedly criticized what they describe as its vindictive treatment by the West. Russia, in particular, has accused the U.S. of trying to destabilize the country by means of a ‘color revolution,’ aimed at replacing the current political leadership with a pro-Western proxy, and supported efforts by the government to clamp down on Western-financed political parties and NGOs.

 

The two have also backed Serbia’s position towards Kosovo, highlighting the plight of the local Serbs at the hands of the government in Priština and offering it unconditional support even as Belgrade ups the ante by massing its army on Kosovo’s border and arming local paramilitaries opposed to Priština’s claim on the north. In a strong gesture of solidarity, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Serbia in May 2024, one of only three countries to feature on his European tour.

 

In Bosnia, Russia has repeatedly criticized Western attempts to pressure the Serbs via sanctions and lawfare, and supported their confrontation with the High Representative. Meanwhile, China has provided budgetary support to Republika Srpska, and Chinese firms have taken over infrastructure projects such as a planned highway to Belgrade after the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development withdrew its support.

 

In sum, the West has created a situation which contravenes its own interests while perfectly serving those of its opponents. On the one hand, by opting for a political scrap with the Serbs, the West has missed the chance to integrate a nation that wants to be integrated and expand its geographical realm into Eastern Europe, instead devoting attention and resources that are needed elsewhere to suppressing a would-be ally.

 

On the other, the West has strengthened the position of Russia and China to whom the Serbs have been forced to seek protection, creating opportunities—which the West’s great power rivals are all-too-happy to take—to deepen their political and economic influence within the geographical confines of the EU.

 

The Rationale Behind the Self-Defeating Policy

Why then are the U.S. and its allies pursuing a strategically self-defeating policy towards the Serbs that serves the interests of its opponents? The short answer is that it attaches less importance to blocking Russia and China in the Balkans than to blocking the creation of a nation state for the Serbs, something they seek due to a wish for national unification and a guarantee of their security and rights in a region of vindictive nationalisms with only a weak tradition of constitutional liberalism.

 

What this means in practice has evolved significantly since the early-1990s, when Serbian nationalists sought a ‘Greater Serbia,’ encompassing Serbia itself, plus Montenegro, Kosovo, most of Bosnia and the Serb-populated regions of Croatia. Today, the Serbs’ ambitions are generally restricted to the goal of reintegrating northern Kosovo and uniting with Republika Srpska, the places where Serbs predominate, while maintaining close relations with an independent Montenegro.

 

Yet for many policymakers today, in the U.S., the UK and across the EU, even this more limited ambition must nonetheless be prevented, if necessary by coercive and undemocratic means, and regardless of whether it contravenes the higher strategic objective of victory in the emerging struggle for global supremacy between the West and its great power rivals. 

 

The rationale for this position is complex and somewhat obscure, but three main reasons stand out. The first is a misplaced fear that any change to borders in the Balkans will trigger a new round of violence, returning a volatile region to the dark days of the 1990s. Certainly, it is not hard to imagine worst-case scenarios. A military move by Serbia on northern Kosovo could provoke Albanians to take up arms in its defense, while Bosniaks might forcefully resist efforts by Republika Srpska to secede. Minority populations living on the wrong side of any new borders could be ethnically-cleansed.

 

Potentially, violence could spread as Albania comes to the aid of Kosovo, Croatia backs parallel efforts by the Croats to break away from Bosnia, and the fragile state of North Macedonia, with its large Albanian population, also falls apart. Worse still, given the Serbs’ connections to Russia and China, and the Bosniaks’ links to Turkey, such a conflagration could draw in an array of outside powers, becoming the epicenter of a global proxy war, in an echo of 1914.

 

For Western policymakers who fear such an outcome, basic prudence necessitates they keep a lid on any potential conflagration by blocking the Serbs’ quest for a nation state—an aspiration of little concern to those who are otherwise living a comfortable distance from the Balkans, with no particular interest in whether the Serbs are united or not.

 

In reality, however, the fear of renewed conflict is exaggerated. For one thing, the demographic landscape in the Balkans has changed radically since the 1990s, following the organized campaigns of ethnic cleansing at the time and subsequent processes of peaceful, voluntary separation. The result on the ground is the emergence of relatively homogenous national communities, living behind clear administrative borders, with only a few minor exceptions—a handful of Serbian enclaves in southern Kosovo, the Preševo Albanians in Serbia, and a few Bosniak habitations in Republika Srpska.

 

Another militating factor is that the Serbs are no longer a belligerent party since they have no significant ethnic minorities to expel from their territories. Nor, in the absence of significant population outside Republika Srpska and northern Kosovo, do most Serbs covet the territory on which another group predominates, excepting a few nationalist hotheads who dream of ethnically-cleansing and ultimately reconquering the whole of Kosovo.

 

This, of course, does not negate the risk that Serbs are attacked by their regional opponents who continue to claim both the territory on which they predominate and territory populated by Serbs, in Republika Srpska and northern Kosovo. However, such ambition comes up against a third salient factor, namely the massive imbalance in power on the ground between the Serbs, a nation of eight million with a large economy and a strong army, and their local opponents, comprising just two million Bosniaks with no army of their own and an even smaller number of Albanians in Kosovo. 

 

The idea that unarmed Bosniaks might stage an invasion of Republika Srpska, with the aim of changing the government or expelling the Serb population, is for the birds. So too is the idea that Albanians could mount any kind of defense of northern Kosovo, a region abutting Serbia where almost no Albanians live and geographically separated from southern Kosovo by the river Ibar—even more so since Albania, whose Prime Minister Edi Rama thinks Kosovo should let the enclave go, would not back it.

 

Indeed, the only scenario in which there could be a serious conflict is if the West opted to back the Bosniaks and Kosovo Albanians militarily, as they did in the 1990s, upsetting the local balance of power and encouraging these groups to lay claim to territory where Serbs predominate. Put another way, the question of whether there is a new conflict is ultimately a matter of choice for policymakers in the West, and presumably one they would opt against.

 

A second reason for the West’s opposition to Serbian nation statehood, which has come to the fore particularly in the last couple of years, is the belief that the Serbs are ‘Russia’s proxy’ in the Balkans, as numerous Western politicians allege. The Serbs have been accused in the U.S. of enabling Russia’s ‘malign influence,’ and figures such as Mr. Dodik are routinely depicted in the Western media as ‘loyal allies’ of Vladimir Putin.

 

Some, such as the Kosovo Albanians, have gone further, claiming Serbia is not just an ally but a Russian acolyte, a ‘mini Russia’ in the Balkans, with precisely the same irredentist agenda and a willingness to use force to achieve its goal of grabbing parts of its neighbors’ territories, backed by its Russian mentor which wants to destabilize the region.

 

For sure, there is circumstantial evidence supporting these claims, from the Serbs’ and Russians’ shared cultural characteristics (Orthodox and Slav), to the strong support for Russia recorded in opinion polls in Serbia, the aforementioned refusal of the Serbs to impose sanctions on Russia, the regular diplomatic contacts between Serbian and Russian officials, and cooperation in the military sphere.

 

From this, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the Serbs must be contained in order to contain Russia. Logically, if they really are proxies of the Kremlin, then any concession to the Serbs is de facto a concession to the Russians, and imposing sanctions on a group which is doing Russia’s bidding is a means for the West to indirectly sanction its great-power opponent.

 

However, the idea that the Serbs are a Russian proxy in some kind of client-patron relationship with the Kremlin who are doing its bidding in the Balkans does not stand up to scrutiny. The most that can be said is that the Serbs use Russia to obtain certain political ends that they cannot achieve alone, but the relationship is hard-headed, transactional, and contingent on specific political circumstances. 

 

In reality, the Serbs themselves are no special friends of the Russians—at least no more than other Orthodox EU members such as the Greeks and the Bulgarians. Geographically, culturally, economically, and politically, the Serbs are far closer to the West to which they naturally gravitate. Serbia is in negotiations to join the EU and cooperates militarily with NATO. Millions of Serbs have sought new lives in Europe and the U.S., while far fewer have done so in Russia. 

 

In reality, the Serbs have drawn closer to Russia in recent years only because they are in dispute with their natural allies in the West who have resisted their goal of national unification and continuously pressure the Serbs to make concessions to their regional opponents. Consequently, the Serbs have been forced to seek protection from an alternative power, a service Russia is willing to provide, at least up to a point. 

 

However, it would also be wrong to think the Russians, whose stance is similarly self-interested and manipulative, have any great regard for the Serbs. Certainly, they are willing to back them in the Serbs’ struggle for nation statehood to the extent this creates a problem for the West, distracts the Americans and the Europeans from issues that matter to Russia such as the status of Ukraine, and obliges the Serbs to stay out of NATO as the quid pro quo for Russia’s support.

 

But Russia’s backing of the Serbs stops well short of supporting Republika Srpska’s independence or Kosovo’s partition for the simple reason that these would resolve the dispute between the Serbs and the West, constituting a strategic loss for Moscow. Tellingly, the Kremlin has consistently backed the current political settlement in the Balkans over the years—exactly as the West has done—for fear that any changes to it would bring an end to this advantageous situation.

 

So, why is the West seemingly obliging Moscow by aligning its policy towards the Serbs with the one that best serves Russia’s interests? To understand this, we must look to the third and most important reason for the West’s stance towards the Serbs, namely the ideological priorities of the elites who dominate Balkan policy in the U.S., the UK and the EU.

 

This begins with an aversion to nationalism and nation states, the perceived cause of all wars in twentieth-century Europe including those in the former Yugoslavia, and a commitment instead to the idea of multiethnic cohabitation and the global society, embodied in transnational institutions such as the EU, for which the Serbs, with their attachment to the nation, territory, and borders are a living rebuke.

 

Western elites also place high store on upholding the ideal of ‘restorative justice’ which, in the case of the Serbs, translates into an indefinite prohibition on establishing a nation state as punishment for the crimes against humanity they committed in pursuit of nation statehood in the 1990s, most notably the massacre in Srebrenica. From a liberal perspective, to concede such a goal, even after a delay of three decades, would amount to a reward for barbarism.

 

These priorities elide with a broader set of concerns about upholding the norm of territorial integrity which is seen as a pillar of a stable, rules-based international order, and one which has shaped Western policy towards the Serbs throughout the process of Yugoslavia’s breakup.

 

In 1991, the EU’s Badinter commission determined that the old Yugoslav federation’s republican borders could not be violated, leading Germany and then others to recognize what had previously been internal administrative units as independent states, sundering the Serbian nation into multiple parts. 

 

This norm was reaffirmed at the end of the war in Bosnia in 1995 as the West insisted the country must remain a unified state, despite Serbs and Croats having fought for three years not to be part of it. When Kosovo was granted independence in 2008, the West affirmed the norm of territorial integrity once again, insisting the province could not be partitioned to let the north reintegrate with Serbia. Then, a decade later, Germany and the UK rejected plans by the first Trump Administration to divide Kosovo in return for Serbia’s recognition of its independence. 

 

Such concerns have gained salience in the last couple of years as Western elites worry that revising borders in the Balkans would legitimize Russia’s efforts to redraw borders in Ukraine and encourage China to annex Taiwan. Indicatively, on a visit to Bosnia in 2024, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock dismissed efforts to change borders by force as ‘the greatest poison for humanity.’

 

Yet even this reasoning is not the entirety of the story, leaving unanswered the question why the West’s approach to the Serbs has remained almost entirely unchanged since the 1990s, even as doing so undermines its broader strategic goals in the new geopolitical era. Why has a reality check not at some point kicked in, even as the West’s conflict with Russia and China has deepened?

 

One reason, especially in the U.S., is the stability of the community leading policy towards the Balkans. Many of the same people have been making the decisions throughout this time, including several current American ambassadors to the region and the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Balkans. Similarly, the EU’s new Special Representative to Serbia and Kosovo is a diplomatic veteran of the Balkans who has previously held positions not only in Belgrade and Priština but also Sarajevo, Skopje and Zagreb.

 

Behind these officials stand a group of tireless activists, working in academia, think tanks and journalism, many of whom formed their views of the Balkans in the 1990s and have not changed them since. In the media, at conferences and in testimony before parliaments, these activists exert a powerful influence over policy, successfully passing themselves off as impartial experts on the Balkans, masking their real vocation as professional opponents of a Serbian nation state.

 

Meanwhile, at the upper echelons of politics in Washington, London, Berlin, and Brussels is a political establishment, comprising liberally-minded ministers and parliamentarians with little knowledge of the Balkans and even less curiosity, who are easily persuaded by these officials and activists that justice, morality, and peace involves defying the Serbs and backing their regional opponents. The result is 30 years of policy stasis.

 

In fairness to political leaders in the West, they do recognize, at least in theory, the overarching strategic goal of strengthening the West and defeating its great power opponents, and understand that the Serbs are relevant to this. After years of inaction, the EU has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a renewed push to enlarge the union and integrate the Serbs, most notably by agreeing to open negotiations with Bosnia on eventual membership. 

 

Political leaders also recognize the imperative of breaking Serbia’s linkages with non-European powers by insisting that Belgrade imposes sanctions on Russia and downgrades its burgeoning economic relations with Beijing. Among other things, they have made clear that Serbia’s new free-trade agreement with China is incompatible with its aspiration for EU membership.

 

However, in practice, such efforts are in vain for as long as the West insists the Serbs renounce nationalism, surrender Kosovo within its existing borders, and accept their place in a more centralized Bosnia—in other words, that the Serbs compromise their most fundamental interests in relation to the security, sovereignty, and integrity of the Serbian nation, something they are manifestly unwilling to do.

 

The result is anger among Serbs and frustration among Western policymakers who, despite concerted efforts to persuade the Serbs to accept their state of division, have conspicuously failed over many years. Consequently, for lack of any better options, the West is forced to apply ever more pressure on the Serbs in the hope of changing their position, to no avail. The effect is simply to fuel the Serbs’ resentment and put the goal of reconciliation and integration with the West even further out of reach.

 

Changing the Strategy

How then can the West align its policy towards the Serbs with the overarching strategic objective of facing down Russia and China? The short answer is that, if the West’s current policy of resisting the Serbs’ goal of national unification is producing diametrically the wrong result by weakening its own position and strengthening that of Russia and China, then the right result involves adopting the opposite approach to the current one. 

 

Put another way, rather than persisting with the forlorn task of suppressing the Serbs at the price of pushing them towards Russia and China, the West should aim to bring the Serbs onside by giving ground on their political goal of establishing a nation state. Or, to be more precise, it should cease to stand in the way of this, letting the Serbs and their local counterparts reach an accommodation among themselves in a process steered but not dictated by the West.

 

In Kosovo, that means abandoning the EU’s current plan for trying to secure Serbia’s recognition of the breakaway state, which rules out its partition, and allow negotiations to proceed without preconditions. In the absence of political and ideological red lines imposed by European negotiators, Serbia would be free to put the idea of partition back on the table, with the Serb-populated north of Kosovo passing to Serbia in return for Belgrade accepting the independence of the Albanian-dominated south.

 

Most Serbs know that southern Kosovo is lost and can see that the unresolved issue of Kosovo’s status is burdening Serbia’s relations with the West, preventing it from ever joining the EU. What they want in return for recognition is an outcome that allows the Serbs living in the north of Kosovo to unite with the rest of Serbia, ensuring their security and well-being and providing some compensation for relinquishing the Serbs’ claim on the rest. If the issue went to a referendum, the government could reasonably argue that Serbia’s core interests had been met.

 

As part of any such deal, Serbia and Kosovo could also decide terms for resolving the status of their respective minorities in southern Kosovo and the Preševo Valley, for which there would be a range of options, from guarantees of their cultural rights, to territorial autonomy, an exchange of territories or the voluntary relocation of these peoples to the other side of the border, if that is what they desired.

 

No doubt, such an approach would face opposition in Priština, which has correctly interpreted the West’s insistence on Kosovo’s territorial integrity as reason to believe it does not need to bargain over the status of the north. However, this assumption would fall away if the West dropped this insistence and adopted a more flexible stance on the question of borders. 

 

As compensation for relinquishing the north, Kosovo would be free to unite with Albania, the stated ambition of peoples and governments in both places, auguring a much brighter future for a landlocked and economically-challenged country that would immediately become a NATO member and candidate for EU membership.

 

This, in fact, is the approach adopted by the first Trump Administration, which the presidents of Serbia and Kosovo both unofficially accepted back in 2018, before progress was blocked by liberally-minded governments in Germany and the UK which objected to any change in Serbia’s borders. With the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the steady election of governments across Europe with a more Realist approach to foreign affairs, the opportunity has returned to revive this approach.

 

In Bosnia, aligning policy with the West’s broader strategic objectives would similarly involve rubbing out some of its longstanding red lines although, at least in the short term, there is no need to change Bosnia’s external borders. The Serbs have said repeatedly they can live with a more devolved state, as outlined in the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in 1995, before Western politicians decided to retroactively revise this in the early-2000s in favor of a more centralized state.

 

The task for the West is to lift its veto on devolution, allowing Republika Srpska to restore its one-time autonomy in areas such as justice, transport, taxation and domestic security and pursue parallel relations with Serbia, and to reconfigure some of Bosnia’s central institutions. The West might also lift its veto on the Croats’ demand for a self-governing entity akin to Republika Srpska, in effect recasting Bosnia as a Swiss-style federation in which the three national groups ran their own affairs on their own territory within a notionally-unified whole.

 

No doubt this would be a wrench for the Bosniaks, who lived everywhere in Bosnia until they were ethnically cleansed in the early-1990s and relate to the entire territory of the country, and have hitherto understood the West’s insistence that there can be no devolution in Bosnia as meaning this is off the agenda. However, the prize for Bosniaks would be the chance to live in their own self-governing entity in which they could realize their interests and express their identity, without the need to accommodate a large, troublesome and obstructive Serbian (and Croatian) minority that blocks the Bosniaks at every turn.

 

In the longer term, such arrangements might ultimately prove unsustainable, dependent largely on whether the Serbs were able to realize their interests within a more devolved state structure. If so, then Western policy would need to be directed towards helping Bosniaks establish a secure and viable independent state. Among other things, if the Croats also opted to leave, Bosnia’s internal borders would have to be redrawn at Republika Srpska’s expense to unite the isolated Bosniak-populated Una-Sana canton with other Bosniak-majority areas.

 

A solution to the problems of Kosovo and Bosnia such as these would also be a wrench for liberals in the West who would have to compromise some of their most cherished principles. However, upholding these principles now comes at a price which is too high to bear. With the West’s pre-eminent position at stake, they belong in the category of luxury beliefs, a hangover from a previous geopolitical epoch when the trade-offs were low. 

 

Instead, in the new era of global confrontation, strategic choices must be made, starting with a decision to place the goal of maintaining Western global hegemony over a desire for international justice, an ideal that, if applied to every nation with blood on its hands, would mean the West had almost no external allies nor, for that matter, any kind of internal unity.

 

In practice, the U.S. and its allies do not indefinitely judge peoples such as the Turks, the Czechs, or the Ukrainians for the expulsion and killing of minority groups in the process of establishing their statehood, however egregious the crime. In all these cases, a line was drawn and the strategic imperative of living and working together took over. 

 

A similar decision must now be made in relation to the Serbs. Western elites may find their wish for nation statehood distasteful, and they have had their chance to persuade the Serbs to abandon this goal. However, to say the least, this has proved challenging until now and will only become more so as Westerners themselves adopt an increasingly nationalist politics. In deciding which battles to fight from an ever-growing menu, this one is not a priority.

 

The West has no strategic interest in how a country like Bosnia organizes its internal affairs, which is fundamentally a matter for the people living there and has no ramifications beyond Bosnia’s own borders. A more devolved state would not represent anything new or dangerous in international politics.

 

Nor can the West be paralyzed in Kosovo by the norm of territorial integrity, always a function of power and politics more than law. The legalistic notion that upholding borders in a place such as the Balkans acts as a constraint on Russia in Ukraine or China in Taiwan no longer makes any sense, if it indeed ever did. In practice, Russia’s annexation of eastern Ukraine has rendered the norm obsolete.

 

In its place, a new operating principle is emerging – and is likely to become established by the new Trump administration - which distinguishes between border changes that serve the West’s interests and those that do not. Moscow’s redrawing of borders in eastern Ukraine falls clearly into the latter camp by delivering to Russia the Donbas’ industrial riches and expanding the Kremlin’s sphere of influence.

 

By contrast, moving the border between Serbia and Kosovo would help to end a strategically self-defeating conflict with the Serbs, whose primary beneficiaries are the great power rivals of a West which otherwise has no vital interest in where international borders lie in the Balkans.

 

Instead, the Serbs could be brought into the Western fold, formally integrated into the West via membership of the EU and NATO, ending Russia and China’s foothold in the Western Balkans. They could devote their territory and resources to the Western alliance and, with their national problems largely resolved, allow the West to focus more fully on the task of facing down its new external enemies. Without the West’s external veto on their popular aspiration for nation-statehood, the Serbs might also make a successful transition to liberal democracy, reversing the current slide towards authoritarianism.

 

A Brave New Policy

Inevitably, the Serbian question will only ever be a small part in the West’s overall strategy for facing down its emerging challengers, but it is nonetheless an important one, determining whether the West consolidates its position in its eastern European hinterland or cedes ground to its great power rivals. The outcome is in the gift of the U.S. and its allies, which have the power to decide whether to draw the Serbs in or push them away.

 

As the world moves on, foreign policy must adapt accordingly. The West’s current approach of suppressing the Serbs in the hope they abandon nationalism is an unattainable extravagance, dating back to a time when the West reigned supreme and the political stakes were low. With the West now in a state of proxy war with Russia and embarking on a generational struggle with China, its overarching strategic interests inevitably necessitate a rethink of its old approach.

 

If that means ending the West’s longstanding opposition to Serbian nationalism, then so be it. Rather than pursuing stability, integration, and Westernization, as it has done for three decades by opposing the Serbs in their pursuit of nation statehood, the West should be ready to achieve this same goal by making concessions to this demand. For the sake of its own interests, above all victory in the struggle for global supremacy, the time has come to abandon its longstanding conflict with a reluctant opponent and instead make of the Serbs a reliable Western ally.

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