When French president Emmanuel Macron had his two-day visit to Serbia in August, he brought back home a contract worth €2.7bn as Serbia inked a deal to buy 12 French-made Rafale fighter jets from French defence manufacturer Dassault Aviation.
For Macron, the transaction was a chance for a brief display of what was left of European leadership in the Balkans. However, Serbian motives are more multifaceted, and they involve defence policy, diplomatic manoeuvring and domestic politics.
French motivation is pretty straightforward. Macron had a chance to secure a commercial contract for the French company.
Moreover, as he faced challenges to his political leadership in France, Macron needed to have at least some display of leadership. The Balkans appeared as a long-hanging fruit.
On occasion, Macron expressed rhetorical support for Serbian accession to the EU, while the French press qualified the sale of Rafale jets as an attempt by Paris to get Belgrade to sever its link with Moscow—dubious chances of success on both counts.
For Belgrade, the calculus is more nuanced. Serbia and the rest of the Balkans are in the process of replacing and modernising their outdated weapons arsenals that originate from the days of former Yugoslavia.
In the Serbian case, special attention is dedicated to the control of national airspace. The past historical experiences, particularly the Nazi bombing of Belgrade in 1941 and Nato intervention during the 1999 Kosovo war, where in both cases, Serbia faced a superior air force, makes airpower a source of fascination.
In that context, Serbia also acquired Mistral, a French infrared man-portable air-defence system and the GM-400 long-range surveillance radar from France’s Thales.
Russian rapid-fire Pantsir S1 anti-aircraft missile system, Chinese CH-92A drones and China’s FK-3 air defence systems are already part of Belgrade’s arsenal. The kamikaze drones from the UAE are also on their way.
Purchasing Rafale was also a necessity for Belgrade as Russian MiG-29s used by the Serbian airforce are set to become obsolete, and the closure of European territory and airspace for Russian transport after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prevents Belgrade from reaching a new deal with Moscow. Serbia can flash out the Rafales both in the context of controlling its airspace and in the context of the quasi-arms race Serbia has been engaged with its neighbour Croatia since 2015, and in which Croatia already got Rafale jets from France.
Arms procurement is also part of Serbian foreign policy, where Belgrade loves to hedge bets and pit rival powers against each other. Serbian leadership believes that by buying weaponry from certain countries, they buy their political friendship along the way.
In the past year, the Serbian government has faced one major domestic crisis after another, including the ongoing nationwide protests against Anglo-Australian mining multinational Rio Tinto and its lithium mining project in Serbia, followed by heavy pressures exercised by the government against the project critics in the media and civil society.
Vulnerable at home, Vučić and his government need to buy the friendship of Western governments, and in the case of France, the purchase of Rafale jets helps.
There are other domestic factors at play as well.
According to public opinion polls, the military is the most trusted national institution in Serbia, followed by religious institutions. By buying weaponry, leaders project the image of leaders taking good care of one of the nation’s most cherished institutions, and score domestic points. It is also a diversion from domestic troubles.
High-profile arms purchases are frequently a way to conceal from the public the ugly reality that the greatest problem of the Serbian military is the massive departure of military professionals who cite unsatisfactory conditions and lack of respect as the main reasons for their departure.
Where does this lead us in the end? War is unlikely to break out in the Balkans since the region is firmly embedded in Nato and Western security structures. Even Serbia has powerful cooperation with Nato, particularly the US, with which defence collaboration has flourished in the past two years. Still, there is no doubt that the old practice of tabloid-style militant sensationalism will persevere.
The price of €2.7bn also appears staggering for Serbia’s middle-income economy.
The deal already involved a guarantee that Serbia would not share Rafale technology with Russia. The question remains how to integrate French and Chinese hardware into the same system.
The deal might involve the French dispatching an inspection to Serbia every several months to inspect whether their technology might be susceptible to Chinese technology extracting data.
Similarly, given that it is not a Nato member state, the Rafale jets will not have access to all the technical applications as in the case of the jets supplied to Croatia, which is in Nato.
It is equally questionable who will be piloting these jets given the described problem of military cadre departures and how prepared those pilots that piloted MiGs to shift to a Nato-standard jet.
It may turn out that the Rafale sale is not that much of a game-changer but a display of how the game is played in the Balkans these days.
Vuk Vuksanovic is an associate at LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think tank within the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP).
Vuk Vuksanovic is an associate at LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think tank within the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP).