Should Serbia be worried about the “military alliance” of Croatia, Albania and Kosovo?

While in Serbia it is interpreted that an "alliance against Serbia" has been created, defense experts from Zagreb and Pristina believe that there is no reason for concern in Belgrade.

Albania's Chief of General Staff, Arben Kindji, announced last week that the country, Croatia and Kosovo will hold joint military exercises this year, two of which will be held in Zagreb and one in Tirana, Albanian media reported.

According to Kindi, the cooperation plan “includes not only joint exercises, but also exchange of experiences and deeper operational coordination.” Such a step is based on the agreement (Memorandum) on cooperation in the field of defense, which the three parties signed in March 2025, which caused extremely harsh reactions from the Serbian authorities.

Official Belgrade claims that the Memorandum violated the subregional agreement on arms control from 1996, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1244, according to which KFOR is the only armed force in Kosovo.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić referred to Tirana's announcement of joint military exercises last weekend, commenting on TV Informer on the US's armed action against Iran and the escalation of tensions in the Middle East. When asked by a journalist how he sees the plans of the Albania-Pristina-Croatia alliance, he repeated the claims that "it is directed against Serbia."

"I noticed in the Croatian press that they are writing that I will go crazy because there will be military exercises in Zagreb and Tirana. It is as if it is directed against me. No, it is directed against Serbia, I am completely rational, absolutely calm and peaceful... When we talk about Croatia, it is a country that does not hand over to us defendants for the most serious crimes, terrorism and attacks on state order. They show in the most brutal way that they are hostile to us," Vučić declared.

Referring to Aleksandar Vučić's rhetoric, Ramadan Ilazi , research director of the Kosovo Center for Security Studies from Pristina, tells the magazine “Contemporary Politics” that he understands that Belgrade is concerned about this cooperation agreement, “but he does not see an objective reason for such concern, given that from the point of view of military and “hard” security, the main actor in Kosovo remains NATO within the framework of its KFOR mission.”

"The sensationalization of this defense cooperation agreement appears to have been driven primarily by internal political calculations, especially at a time when President Vučić is facing a crisis of credibility," Ilazi states.

"Cooperation agreements are a typical defensive strategy of small states"

At the end of January, a meeting of Croatia, Albania and Kosovo at the level of directors for defense policy and armaments was held in Zagreb. The Croatian Ministry of Defense announced that they discussed opportunities for improving cooperation in the field of defense capabilities, interaction between the defense industries of the signatories of the memorandum, and steps for further implementation of the Memorandum, signed on March 18, 2025 in Tirana.

Also, in early February, a meeting of the Chiefs of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Albania and Croatia and the Commander of the Kosovo Security Forces took place in Shkodra. As announced, the focus of the talks was on deepening military cooperation through concrete plans.

A few days later, the defense ministers of Croatia and Albania, as well as the prime ministers of Kosovo and Croatia, Albin Kurti and Andrej Plenkovic, met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

"We share common values ​​with Croatia and it is supportive of our membership in NATO and the European Union," Kurti said on that occasion.

Plenkovic wrote on the social network X that he discussed with Kurti the situation in the region, security challenges and the status of the Croatian minority in Janjevo, emphasizing that "Croatia continues to strengthen cooperation with Kosovo and supports its European path."

In reaction to these meetings, Vučić, who was also present at the Munich Security Conference, stated: “I see that Plenkovic and Kurti met here, the defense ministers of Croatia and Albania also met, very good.”

"If their intention was to bother us, they bother us and we will take steps accordingly," he said.

However, a few days later, during the world summit in New Delhi, Vučić said he "had a long conversation with Plenkovic."

" "For the first time, we talked about the topic of the military alliance between Pristina, Tirana and Zagreb. I can say that Prime Minister Plenković said that it was not directed against Serbia," said the President of Serbia.

According to Ilazi, military cooperation between Kosovo, Albania and Croatia should be understood primarily “as a normal and legitimate form of defense cooperation between Kosovo and the states NATO members, which contribute their soldiers to the KFOR mission in Kosovo.

"It is also a typical defense strategy of small states. This agreement can help the Kosovo Security Forces in further developing and strengthening their compliance with NATO standards. Such agreements are not uncommon in Europe or in our region and usually aim to strengthen interoperability, training and the ability to respond to crisis situations," Ilazi emphasizes.

Our interlocutor claims that, before becoming a NATO member in 2023, Finland spent decades deepening bilateral defense cooperation with the United States, Sweden, and Great Britain.

“The Baltic countries followed the same path in the 1990s, long before they joined NATO in 2004. They signed bilateral defense agreements, organized NATO exercises and so on. Albania, Bulgaria, Italy and North Macedonia have concluded agreements on the mobility of armed forces. It is also important to remember that both Albania and Croatia are NATO members and are bound by NATO’s principles of collective defense. As such, they cannot “enter into defense agreements that would undermine the security of the Alliance or its members, or create new challenges for them. To date, as far as I know, neither NATO nor KFOR have expressed concern about this cooperation,” Ilazi emphasizes.

A similar attitude represents  Senada Selo Sabic , a scientific advisor at the Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO) in Zagreb, who tells Contemporary Politics magazine that she does not see the aforementioned military agreement as a threat to Serbia “or peace in the region.”

"We are talking about defense cooperation within the framework of established international obligations - Croatia and Albania are members of NATO, Croatia recognizes Kosovo, and cooperation takes place within the context of Euro-Atlantic security. Such forms of cooperation are common among partners and in themselves do not represent a destabilizing factor," states Šelo Šabić.

She notes that "whether something will be interpreted as a threat depends on the political message that needs to be sent."

"This initiative may be presented as a threat, but it can also be seen as a step towards strengthening regional stability and interoperability, which in the long term could open space for broader regional cooperation in the field of security, when the political conditions for it are created," Sabić explains.

Ramadan Ilazi emphasizes that the trilateral military agreement cannot be seen separately from two important events that occurred in recent years – Kosovo's inability to become a member of NATO and the "Banjska case".

Ilazi also notes that “President Vučić’s suggestion that Serbia should learn from the example of Azerbaijan’s strategy in Nagorno-Karabakh rightly caused concern in Kosovo.”

EU and NATO membership would significantly reduce security dilemmas in the Western Balkans

Speaking about possible scenarios related to strengthening security in the Western Balkans, Ramadan Ilazi claims that the region would benefit more "if all countries, including Serbia, focused on NATO integration and worked collectively towards this goal."

"EU and NATO membership would significantly reduce security dilemmas and alleviate many concerns regarding defense and security cooperation between countries in the region and beyond. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that there are also problems in Kosovo related to Serbia's moves in the security field. This includes the possibility of Serbia adopting the concept of the so-called 'total defense', Project 5000 (increasing the number of special forces to 5000), the way Kosovo has been treated in general in the defense strategy towards Serbia, Serbia's opening up to the Russian military presence, as well as its procurement of Russian and Chinese military equipment," concludes the interlocutor of Contemporary Politics.

In Sabić's opinion, "Serbia, like any sovereign state, has the right to decide on its own security arrangements, including cooperation with NATO, which it already has."

 "But, at the same time, other states also have the right to develop their own forms of cooperation. It is essential that security issues in the region are addressed transparently and without rhetoric that unnecessarily increases tensions," Sabić said.

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