Aleakander Vuciq speaks of peace, but Serbia is investing billions of dollars in weapons

From 2014 to the end of 2023, Serbia's Armed Forces have invested $2.87 billion in military equipment and weapons.

This figure includes the value of MiG-29 tanks B1 MS and the BRD2MS armor, which has been donated to Serbia from Russia.

Last weekend, Serbian President Vuciq, during a visit to the Military Security Agency Operational Centre in Belgrade, said Serbia would buy eight armoured vehicles “Nora” in response to the purchase of antitank missiles “Javelin” from Kosovo.

We have 186m euros in our account and we will immediately spend on buying eight military vehicles “Nora” and we will buy immediately”, Vuciq said.

He also announced that Serbia this year will spend close to 740m euros on the purchase of other military equipment.

Therefore, the trend of increased investment in weapons and military equipment seems to be continuing even at the beginning of this year, writes the Serbian newspaper Danas.

Atlantic Council Chairman Vladan Zivulovic believes this investment in military equipment and weapons is more populist than practical.

We don't have a weapons strategy that works at all in the operational sense, we buy helicopters used by Cyprus and we don't have pilots, so this kind of arming is more of a stigma. To create the impression that it is more populist tactics than practical”, Zivulovic says.

He says the problem is also the fact that Serbia receives weapons and military equipment from various countries, which are often at odds - both east and west.

I have heard remarks from foreign military attachés that we take many different weapons and that this creates a problem, for example we buy helicopters from France and rockets from China”, Zivulovic says.

As he adds, arms should serve as protection because a strong army is a means to prevent any aggression.

“In this scenario, where we are surrounded by NATO, I don't believe they would stand a chance if we entered into conflict”, Zivulovic believes.

Commenting on a hypothetical conflict in Kosovo or, for example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, due to Milorad Dodik's rhetoric on Republika Srpska's independence history, he says that in that case NATO would easily be included”, even though Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not members of the alliance.

“NATO is present in Kosovo and partly present in Bosnia and Herzegovina through EULEX forces. Attack on their soldiers means they must be protected, so in that situation NATO would certainly be activated to a measure of”, Zivulovic explains.

Nikola Lunic, executive director of the Council for Strategic Policy, tells Danas that Serbia's arming is neither a secret nor a danger to NATO countries, but that Serbia is turning out to be a unreliable partner whose unilateral movements could lead to the destabilisation of the region.

Serbia's “National Interest is the creation of long-term alliances and predictable partnerships, which does not currently function”, says Lunic.

As he adds, sharing money worth nearly three billion dollars for the Serbian Army, for the period from 2014 to late 2023, would be perfectly normal if Serbia was in danger of war.

“However, the problem is that the current National Security Strategy and Defence Strategy do not offer the public any indication of concrete security threats, and thus questions defence policy and economic costs for procurement in the field of defence”, says Luniq. .

He believes Serbia can be armed even more if it aims to consistently implement the concept of total protection on which its military neutrality is based.

But for a country like Serbia, military neutrality is absolutely unstable without the neutrality of foreign policy, with no entrenched tradition and international recognition of such a status”, says Lunic.

He adds that Serbia has remained in a kind of a qualm between virtual military neutrality and political election of European integration.

“in such a situation, any non-systemic, non-transparent and anachronic weapons is simply wandering on illusions of past wars and preparations for new defeats”, Lunic believes.