Strategic Curbing of Serbia’s Foreign Policy Diversification: Wedging, De-Hedging, Cornering, Co-Opting and Negative Framing

Mitić, Aleksandar (2025) Strategic Curbing of Serbia’s Foreign Policy Diversification: Wedging, De-Hedging, Cornering, Co-Opting and Negative Framing. In: Risks for Serbian Foreign Policy in the Fragmentation of the International Order — Actors, Processes, and Outcomes. Institut za međunarodnu politiku i privredu, Beograd, pp. 35-54. ISBN 978-86-7067-363-2

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Abstract

While being quasi-surrounded by NATO countries and pursuing European Union membership talks, the Republic of Serbia is leading an ‘independent foreign policy’, based on its declared military neutrality and its multi-vector diplomacy, requiring delicate Eastward hedging. Such strategy is due to the country’s strategic narrative and the evolving geopolitical environment marked by multipolarization, defined by the clash of global powers over its territorial integrity, economic diversification and diplomatic manoeuvrability. Serbia’s non-alignment with the political West regarding the imposition of sanctions against the Russian Federation, and its building of a ‘China-Serbia Community with a Shared Future in the New Era’ with Beijing, are perceived by the political West as a ‘blurry’ of Serbia’s strategic orientation. For Brussels and Washington, this orientation should be clearly Westward, particularly in the light of direct confrontation with Moscow and intense competition with Beijing. Thus, Western capitals and institutions have pursued a series of policies aimed at curbing Serbia’s foreign policy diversification. This paper explores the range of these policies - from negative framing and de-hedging, to co-opting, wedging and cornering. It concludes that the Western statecraft repertoires aimed at shaping the Balkans environment have limits due to Serbia’s own strategic interests, and the great power competition in the region.

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