Nevertheless, the genie is out of the bottle. If drones are a satisfactory way for the world’s mightiest country to reduce the financial cost and risk of life loss, it is also tempting for demographically challenged Balkan countries to take care of their military requirements at an affordable price, and reduce the risk of losing shrinking manpower.
Balkan countries have observed how others employ drones; Turkey and its Bayraktar TB2 drones stand out. These drones have been used most famously in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war by Azerbaijan against Armenian troops and in the ongoing war in Ukraine by Ukrainian forces against Russia. In February 2023, Serbian Defence Minister Milos Vucevic noted that the Serbian military is analysing the experiences of these two conflicts before assessing drone acquisition.
Absence of effective arms control mechanism
Visitors inspect the EDGE section at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference, IDEX, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, February 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/ALI HAIDER
The second reason is the absence of arms control regimes governing UAVs. All countries in the Western Balkans have ratified the legally binding Arms Trade Treaty, ATT, although some of the main drone producers, including the US, Russia, China, Israel and Iran, are still not part of it. The ATT implicitly covers drones but lacks a mechanism for verifying information provided in national reports and enforcing compliance. The United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, UNROCA, which also includes armed drones, has an even worse reporting record, and the Western Balkan states are no exception.
Furthermore, these countries are not part of the Wassenaar Arrangement, WA, a non-binding mechanism for export controls for conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies, including drones. WA does not include some of the main drone producers, such as Israel, China and Iran. Additionally, the 1996 Agreement on Sub-Regional Arms Control, modelled after the Conventional Forces in Europe CFE treaty, does not extend to drones. As a result, there are currently no measures to regulate the acquisition of drones.
The third reason is the desire of other countries in the region to match the capabilities that Serbia has acquired. In June 2020, China delivered six CH-92A drones manufactured by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation CASC to Serbia. These drones made Serbia the largest drone operator in the Western Balkans. This transaction did not only involve the acquisition of military hardware but also technology transfers that allowed Serbia to complete its drone project, Pegaz (Pegasus).
Serbia also decided to buy “kamikaze drones” from the UAE after President Aleksandar Vucic attended the International Defense Exhibition and Conference, IDEX, in Abu Dhabi in February 2023. The drones in question are probably RW-24 drones manufactured by Halcon, a subsidiary of a UAE state-owned conglomerate EDGE Group. Serbia will use this transaction to complete its swarm drone system Gavran (Raven) project. Serbia’s procurement of drones and its plans to acquire more have caused concern in the region, and other countries have also announced their intentions to purchase armed drones. Albania has signed a contract to acquire three Turkish Bayraktar drones and Kosovo has reportedly received five of these drones. Before that, in 2021, Bosnia’s army chief visited the Bayraktar factory in Turkey, raising suspicion that Bosnia is also among the potential buyers.
Some countries have been less forthcoming about their drone arsenals but have been actively engaged in their development. In March 2023, it was reported that Croatia, like North Macedonia, is believed to possess Israeli drones capable of being armed (Hermes 250) and had recently conducted secret tests of other kamikaze drones. These trends do not imply that hostilities are imminent, but when one country acquires a new defence system, it changes the strategic environment, and its neighbours want to match it.
Good way to boost bargaining power
A soldier attending a demonstration of the new military drone CH-92A of the Serbian Army, at the Colonel-Pilot Milenko Pavlovic Airport in Batajnica, Belgrade, Serbia, 04 July 2020. EPA-EFE/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC
The fourth reason is that weapons acquisitions are frequently tools of power play for both local and supplier nations. Serbia frequently buys weapons from various countries in both the Western and non-Western world as a political investment in good bilateral ties with these countries. When Vučić first flaunted the idea of buying Bayraktar drones from Turkey in 2020 (which never materialised), it was done after he met Turkish President Erdogan in Istanbul to mend ties, as Ankara was displeased over Belgrade’s pledge to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (which also never materialised).
Meanwhile, by getting weaponry from multiple sources, Belgrade is following its hedging policy and trying to boost its bargaining power with the West on issues like Kosovo. By purchasing drones from multiple sources, Serbia will be able to pit various drone suppliers against each other while profiting from technology transfers to potentially become a regional drone supply hub. Others in the Balkans can follow similar logic. Croatia frequently buys weaponry to prove that it is honouring by NATO’s 2 per cent defence spending threshold. Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo can also buy drones from Turkey as part of foreign policy hedging.
These transactions cause political friction. In late June, Serbian President Vucic said that Serbia gave up on purchasing Turkish Bayraktar drones because Ankara delivered them to Kosovo. “We will not cooperate with them, because they are the main suppliers of a non-existent state,” Vucic said on pro-government TV Pink.
Instead, Vucic announced that Serbia would get drones from a Middle Eastern supplier. While there were reports in 2022 that Serbia was among the countries interested in buying Iranian Shahed 136 or “kamikaze drones”, this did not happen as it would have been dangerous for Belgrade to be engaged in such a transaction, as these drones are being used against Ukraine by Russia. Therefore, the mentioned RW-24 drones from the UAE were more likely to be the drones from the Middle East that President Vucic referred to in his statement.
Equally important is that drone suppliers also use drone deliveries to increase their political and strategic clout. China is trying to promote itself as a global military power while using Serbia to penetrate the European defence market and circumvent EU restrictions on arms trade with China imposed after the suppression of the Tiananmen protests. Turkey uses weapons delivery and security training to generate stronger political influence in the Balkans. The UAE is also interested in accessing the local defence industry for weapons supply that can be distributed to the UAE’s proxies in Middle Eastern conflicts. This is another factor that makes future drone proliferation in the Western Balkans more likely.
Politicians use military procurements to gain popularity
The fifth reason is populism. The armed forces are the most trusted institution in the region, which has led to politicians using the strengthening of the military to gain support, particularly in times of global instability. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Serbia, where the military is traditionally the most trusted institution. But other countries in the region are no strangers to a practice where politicians use military procurements for domestic promotion. Croatia, a country involved in something of a quasi-arms race with Serbia, is also engaged in this practice, particularly during electoral cycles.
This combination of factors will create a very inducive environment for regional drone proliferation in the Western Balkans. War in the region remains unlikely. Nevertheless, the presence of drones without adequate checks creates risks for the region in the form of an accidental clash or potential misperceptions. Local elites need to be persuaded not to use drones in political sabre-rattling but to treat these weapons systems as parts of the national military arsenal. Without this change, it remains more likely that the proliferation of drones in the Western Balkans will destabilise the region, even without the outbreak of war.
Vuk Vuksanovic is a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) and an associate of LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Filip Ejdus is a professor in security studies at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade, the president of the Central and Eastern European International Studies Association (CEEISA), and a member of the executive board of the BCSP.
This publication is based on an analysis that they wrote for the BCSP based on the financial support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as well as the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia (grant no. 7744512) within the project “Monitoring and Indexing Peace and Security in the Western Balkans” (MIND). The responsibility for the content of this publication belongs solely to the authors of the publication.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.
