U.S. Policy on the Balkans Under Biden: Accommodating Nationalist Hegemons for Managerial Simplicity

This report is part of the larger anthology “Western Balkans 2023: Assessment of Internal Challenges and External Threats”

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Kurt W. Bassuener’s essay dissects U.S. foreign policy in the Western Balkans—namely, vulnerable states such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Albania—arguing that American strategy under Biden is marked by moral resignation and managerial simplicity rather than principled leadership.

Despite early hopes tied to Democratic rhetoric about restoring alliances and advancing democracy, U.S. engagement largely accommodates authoritarian nationalist forces, above all Serbia under Aleksandar Vučić and Croatia via the HDZ. This accommodation maintains regional stability at the cost of democratic momentum, crystallizing in initiatives like Open Balkan, which sideline values in favour of economic pragmatism.

Bassuener tracks this pattern through election law alterations in Bosnia to benefit the HDZ Croat faction, the crisis in northern Kosovo where the U.S. response blamed Pristina, and the faint rebuke of nationalist manipulation via Srpski Svet. Instead of deterrence, U.S. policy defaults to deference to stronger regional actors, undermining Western credibility and emboldening illiberal agendas.

The author calls for an urgent strategic reset—specifically, deterrent deployment under NATO auspices beginning in Brčko—to disrupt creeping destabilization. Without decisive reengagement, the region risks backsliding into violence and fragmentation.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of the New Lines Institute's Western Balkans Center.