By: Veton Surroi
Serbia, with its alarm about drones, is stripping itself bare: it’s obstructing Kosovo’s capacity to defend itself and to modernize its forces within NATO standards. But it might also help ensure that fewer drones are purchased.
Why are the thousand drones Kosovo bought from Turkey good news? And why are they bad news? And: why are they not news at all?
Let’s start with the last question. Arms purchases in Europe exploded after Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022. That message reached the Western Balkans too — among NATO members and among non-members like Serbia and Kosovo. For European NATO states, producing and buying armaments is now part of the duty to shoulder responsibility for the continent’s defense — a demand voiced by successive U.S. presidents this century and, recently, enforced more strongly after President Trump’s insistence. In short: everyone is rearming, and Kosovo doing the same should hardly be headline news.