Small States and Choices: Gambling on Security or Regional Cooperation under a Common Banner?

Since the 1990s, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia have employed strategies and tactics to address insecurity dilemmas by establishing various international partnerships and foreign alignments, choices that impact security governance at both local and regional levels. These countries claim to pursue national security and prosperity through Euro-Atlantic integration. Yet some undermine one another through hybrid warfare, nationalism, hostile rhetoric, and fearmongering, despite participating in EU and NATO accession efforts. This analysis examines whether such conflicting behaviors help these nations accomplish their stated objectives or, instead, inadvertently worsen the region’s security predicament by inciting rivalries and raising tensions, despite common institutional and declared cooperative goals. Emphasizing the traditional security dilemma mindset, the research examines these issues by monitoring security developments and defensive/ offensive tactics in the Western Balkans. It demonstrates how historical and political legacies, combined with a fragmented foreign policy environment and various democratic deficits, can make certain states more likely to provoke responses from others, resulting in an arms race or insecurity dilemma. The study further shows that small states in the Western Balkans can enhance their security through coordinated responses to shared risks and institutionalized regional cooperation. Strategic frameworks aligned with EU and NATO principles enable these states to translate collective commitments into effective security measures, thereby strengthening national defense while fostering regional stability.