The Balkans in the multipolar moment

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

For the Western Balkans, the consequences have been profound. The region’s post-war trajectory rested on the assumption 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 new environment is likely to emerge defined by fragmented security guarantees, overlapping spheres of influence and growing uncertainty about where the region ultimately fits.

These changes directly could shape how Balkan states define their interests, choose partners and govern themselves. They also test whether US and European strategy can still stabilize peripheral regions in an era of great-power competition.

From hierarchy to strategic ambiguity

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

Multipolarity has weakened that constraint.

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

The result is not balance but fragmentation. Security guarantees are no longer singular or absolute. For the Balkans, this raises the baseline risk of miscalculation. Serbia’s calibrated pressure on Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s recurring constitutional brinkmanship, and the region’s renewed defence spending all reflect a strategic environment in which red lines appear less fixed and enforcement less 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 one of those margins.

Spheres of influence without rules

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

Kosovo and Albania are firmly embedded in the US-NATO security sphere, trading autonomy for predictability. Montenegro and North Macedonia have followed a similar path, though their domestic politics remain exposed to external pressure. Serbia has opted for strategic hedging, balancing EU economic 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 security but accept tighter conditionality. States that hedge preserve manoeuvring space but absorb strategic risk. Serbia’s multi-vector strategy has maximized short-term leverage, yet it has also deepened dependence on external veto players, limiting freedom of action in moments of crisis. Bosnia’s overlapping alignments have frozen reform and institutionalized dysfunction.

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

How multipolarity rewrites foreign policy

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

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

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

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

Kosovo and Albania have chosen the opposite path. Their foreign policy is consolidated almost exclusively around the US-NATO axis. They recently became founding member of President Trump’s initiative Board of Peace. This reduces exposure to external coercion but ties their security directly 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: foreign policy fragmentation internalized within the state itself. Competing external alignments map directly onto internal political divisions, transforming diplomacy into a zero-sum domestic contest. Multipolarity does not merely complicate Bosnia’s diplomacy – it entrenches paralysis.

Multipolarity rewards tactical agility, but it punishes strategic incoherence. Small states gain leverage when great powers compete, but they lose protection when competition intensifies.

Why trade no longer buys stability

One of the central assumptions of the post-Cold War order – that economic interdependence restrains conflict – has collapsed. Russia’s war against Ukraine demonstrated that deep trade ties do not prevent war when security imperatives dominate. It also redirected western attention and resources eastward, reinforcing perceptions in the Balkans that regional stability 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’ principal economic anchor, absorbing roughly two-thirds of goods trade, with Germany and Italy central across all six economies. Supply chains bind North Macedonia to German industry and Italian firms remain 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 strategic discipline.

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

This decoupling weakens western conditionality. When alternative patrons exist, reform becomes negotiable. This is the practical consequence of EU enlargement fatigue: when accession appears distant or hollow, its disciplining power erodes and multipolarity fills the vacuum.

Governance as strategic vulnerability

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

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

For small states, weak governance is not merely a democratic concern. It is a strategic vulnerability. In a competitive order, internal fragility invites external manipulation. States that hollow out their institutions in pursuit of flexibility often discover they have become arenas rather than actors.

Choices still matter

Multipolarity constrains but it does not absolve. Western Balkan states are not passive terrain. Their choices to anchor, hedge or obstruct will shape whether the region remains stable or becomes a fault 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 institutional resilience. None of these paths are cost-free and the illusion that small states can indefinitely extract benefits from all sides is increasingly untenable.

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

The unipolar moment has passed. The new multipolar order is not a pause in history but a stress test. In the Balkans, the outcome will reveal whether western strategy can still shape the margins of order or whether those margins will once again harden into fault lines.

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