In Sarajevo, Pristina, and Podgorica, in particular, the anticipation was that the United States and European Union would finally see Serbia and Aleksandar Vucic’s regime for what they are: a Kremlin satellite state sowing discord through a network of regional proxies with the aim of expanding its own quasi-imperial machinations and, in coordination with Moscow, halting the NATO and EU membership aspirations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. And, as a result, consequences would finally follow for Belgrade.

That has not happened. In fact, over the past year, the United States, even more so than the EU, has aggressively deepened its commitments to Serbia’s near-autocratic president while simultaneously reorienting its broader regional posture to center Belgrade and its foreign-policy priorities. While in the Ukrainian context the Biden administration insists on the principle of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”—meaning that Ukrainians must be involved in any and all negotiations related to the war—and has framed its support for Kyiv as an expression of the U.S. president’s broader pro-democracy agenda, neither principle applies to its forays in the Western Balkans. …

It is the kind of realpolitik calculus that has driven decades of U.S. policy in volatile regions. It is what Washington has attempted to do with Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and even Russia in years prior. The track record speaks for itself.

[President Foreign Policy Instincts strikes again. Perhaps Biden and his team worried about being painted as too anti-Slav in facing off against Russia in the Ukraine war, but Ukrainians are Slavs too. Instead, as the article states, Biden has essentially abandoned the pro-American states in the Balkans — including NATO member Montenegro — to curry favor with the pro-Putin regime in Serbia. — Ed]