Why so reluctant Aleksandar, why?

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is turning increasingly East, disappointing those who thought he might be the Serbian nationalist with sufficient credibility on that side of the political spectrum to make a definitive move toward the West. Why is he doing the opposite?

There are several explanations, not mutually exclusive. As in many things politicians do, there are more reasons than needed:

• The West is not proving very attractive. The Americans have little or nothing substantial to offer, beyond loan political risks insurance and support for World Bank loans. The European Union provides lots of money but is more than hesitant about enlargement. In any event, both offer whatever they’ve got with strings attached, then ignore the conditions they themselves impose. Wouldn’t you take the money and run?
• What the West asks is hard. Both Brussels and Washington are pressing for serious normalization of relations with Pristina, which would mean Vucic has to take responsibility for recognizing and establishing diplomatic relations. He has been unwilling to bite that bullet and prefers to control Serbs and resources in Kosovo, hoping thereby to make its independence moot.
• There isn’t much domestic political weight in the Western direction. The liberal democratic opposition in Serbia is even weaker and more divided than usual. Nationalism occupies most of the political space. Vucic’s primary concern is to consolidate power, so moving East is consonant.
• The Russians play dirty. Serbia’s secret services taped a Russian agent paying off one of Serbia’s finest, but Putin and Vucic buried the hatchet (that’s American for decided to make peace and forget about it). The suspicion is that Moscow has threatened, implicitly if not explicitly, to assassinate Vucic, who is more chameleon than superhero.
• China has lots of money. Beijing is spending more of it in Serbia than in other parts of the Balkans, something that Vucic certainly appreciates. Nor does he mind being the “hub” of Beijing’s strategy.
• Russian and Chinese arms are cheap. Serbia has no serious external threat other than Croatia, which is a NATO member and therefore constrained to avoid a kinetic conflict that would complicate the Alliance’s commitments. Belgrade doesn’t need advanced aircraft and air defenses, so it can shop in the bargain basement, which it what it has been doing. Vucic shrugs off American objections.

Vucic is a bit like Turkish President Erdogan: constrained by nationalists within his own body politic to do what comes naturally: accumulate power, obliterate the opposition, and align with other autocrats. Both also enjoy projecting power beyond their borders, on grounds of protecting national security or co-ethnics in neighboring countries. Neo-Ottomanism and Greater Serbia ambitions are external manifestations of domestic nationalist ideology.

In the meanwhile, Vucic gets the Europeans to pay a lot of his bills and the Americans to pressure Pristina into deals on resources like Gazivoda (a lake in northern Kosovo that supplies much of Kosovo’s water supply) and Trepca (a mining complex mostly in northern Kosovo that has been moribund for decades). Russia does relatively little by comparison, but that doesn’t matter because it satisfies nationalist pressure for Slavic cultural and religious affinity and continues to block Kosovo entry into the UN with its certain veto in the Security Council. Putin is smart about keeping the costs of his power projection low.

So there are lots of good reasons for Vucic to do what he is doing, and few compelling ones for a different attitude. He is both feeder and victim of the nationalist milieu that keeps him from anything too bold in the other direction. A real commitment to liberal democracy and EU membership, heartily to be desired, would put his own hold on power at risk, even if it would benefit most of the country’s citizens and accelerate EU accession. Why not just sit tight and get what you can from squeezing the Americans, the Europeans, the Chinese and the Russians? Hedge, don’t bandwagon.

After all, Tito did it, why not Aleksandar.