OPINION - Israel’s Growing Involvement in the Balkans: Emerging Security Asymmetry and Türkiye’s Balancing Role

The geopolitical competition between Türkiye and Israel is stretching beyond the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, thus engulfing the Balkans firmly. Due to the developing situation in Gaza and the changes taking place in Syria and Lebanon, arrangements in the fields of defense, technology, energy and connectivity have been systematically changing. Israel's increasing involvement and linkage to Greece, while including Cyprus as well, and combining this momentum lately with Serbia via strategic military partnership shows strong signals of an occurring regional military asymmetry.All these developments can be understood within a broader context indicating that the Balkans are becoming more closely linked to a chain running from the Eastern Mediterranean towards Southeast Europe. This doesn’t indicate any possible military confrontation between Israel and Türkiye in the Balkans; thus, it shows a significant fact that various global and regional powers are now allocating greater resources to the region of the Balkans, something which has strategic consequences. In this case, Serbia is particularly notable as a major player who has been able to balance its foreign and security policy between the great powers and its regional partners.

While using the newly created situation of antagonisms and confrontation between Trump's USA and the EU over security and economic policies, Serbia followed a successful multi-vector foreign policy combined with security investments and technology while holding good relations with key partners such as Russia and China, and at the same time radically increasing its relationship with the USA, which led to signing an agreement on strategic cooperation and partnership. The degree to which Serbia has diversified its foreign policy speaks loudly to the fact that it does enjoy a comprehensive range of military, political and economic relationships with Russia, Israel and China; in particular, it has a wide and deep relations with Russia, a substantial though varied partnership with China in the military-industrial field, and extensive defense cooperation with Israel.

The fact that Serbia is carrying out military modernization should not be overlooked, because the Serbian Armed Forces are systematically obtaining different kinds of weapons and military equipment, including air defense systems, radars, armored vehicles and UAVs from China and Russia; furthermore, Serbia has ordered 12 Rafale fighters from France and high military and surveillance technology from Israel. What all this shows is that Serbia, on the one hand, has been able to diversify its defense partnerships with many actors and lately Israel, and thus has reduced its dependency quite pragmatically, but on the other hand, it has substantially opened the door to a military and security platform asymmetry that could lead to possible instabilities in the already volatile and precarious region of the Western Balkans.

Israel and the Question of Asymmetry

The latest Israeli involvement and its footprints in the Balkans attract serious attention for analyses having in mind its shift and concentration in a specific triangle between Greece, Serbia and Romania.

Currently, the matrix shows that Greece is by far Israel’s closest strategic and defense partner, culminating in a new military axis including Cyprus, and signing an approximately €3 billion agreement to purchase air-defense systems from Israel. Additionally, Serbia is listed second, with a high military footprint in various agreements and military security cooperation and installations in Serbia and possibly Republika Srpska, whereas Romania also demonstrates growing cooperation in the defense and security areas. Also, Israel’s involvement and possible cooperation with countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Albania and North Macedonia is more limited.

The main reason why Israel’s security and defense relations, in particular with Greece and Serbia and possibly Romania, matter is because of the possible technology transfers of modern air defense systems, surveillance cutting-edge technologies, drones and other diverse defense-industrial cooperation, which can provide militarily considerable advantages to the receiving countries almost immediately after purchase realization. Meanwhile, Serbia, as mentioned before, is pursuing a more diversified and complex defense strategy with countries that are directly and indirectly involved in current global and regional warfare, while maintaining military cooperation with both China and Russia, and in addition installing new rapid defense agreements and investments with Israel. In other words. Serbia today have the greatest access to military and surveillance technology that global and regional powers produce and apply in practice; thus, this could be detrimental for the security paradigm in the Balkans and Europe in general.

The idea of modernizing your military and security platforms can’t be seen as wrong by default, and most countries would be correct to pursue military updates and strengthen their defensive capabilities in an effort to secure their territorial sovereignty and integrity, but in a time of passive military capacity in the neighborhood in which Serbia operates, it can lead to regional instability, especially when that generates a strategic asymmetry between countries. This is especially true for the Balkans, as it remains a sensitive region with numerous unresolved geopolitical tensions, territorial disputes and dysfunctional political systems. The ideal model/scenario is not to refrain states from military technology defense planning but to avoid security disproportion that could reshape the defense architecture in the Balkans and undermine regional stability.

Türkiye and its Balancing Role

Türkiyes involvement in the Balkans has a completely different approach and strategy, generated in years of complex independence, political support, combined with security paradigms, common history, shared spaces and cultural impact, amongst other.

The matrix suggests that the Turkish footprint contains a highly diversified impact and investments in North Macedonia, substantial and robust security and economic relations with Kosovo, a strategic patronage with Albania, and a very broad political, economic, and cultural relationship with Bosnia and Herzegovina, being perceived as a partner that brings stability and security, while with Serbia it has a complex footprint with rapid development. A great fact is that Turkiye’s engagement in the Balkans is not concentrated solely in defense pacts and agreements; it combines military and security cooperation with infrastructure, FDIs, trade, banking, education, culture, public diplomacy, political commitment and soft power.

This gives Ankara a wider and more complex space to play and contribute to regional development and security stability, thus being a factor of a middle power whose tendency is towards security and stability via security symmetry and inclusive economic and regional development.

As previously mentioned, Türkiye plays the role of a trusted security actor in the Balkans through NATO, KFOR and other mutual regional mechanisms, while its bilateral and multilateral defense relationships have been enshrined via common training, equipment, exercises and defense industrial cooperation. Furthermore, the Balkan Peace Platform launched in 2025 openly demonstrates Turkiye's interest in regional stability, dialogue and security cooperation in the Balkan region. This undoubtedly creates significant strategic leverage for Turkiye in contributing to balanced regional military capabilities without defending that role as a direct opposition to Serbia nor confronting Israel system by system.

A more systematic approach from Ankara with regard to Balkan security, on the one hand, would undoubtedly boost Turkiye's defense capacities, and on the other hand, would have an impact on the security capabilities of all regional partners. This could be seen by working more intensively and systematically with Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, in mutual defense capacities, security platforms, drone technology and common production facilities, military training, technology transfer and know-how in defense and security.

The aim wouldn’t be to replicate Serbia’s capabilities by default, nor to create a confronting bloc in which Serbia should be seen as the adversary, but to reduce systematically the already existing asymmetry and give a chance of balanced security capacities amongst partners and Balkan states in being able to protect their territorial sovereignties and help regional deterrence. The given matrix on security footprints suggests that Russia, China and Israel are heavily investing in Serbia with regard to its military capacities; the Turkish engagement is considerably more diversified via different paradigms; and therefore, Turkiye must leverage the existing platforms and its social capital as a basis for a symmetric security architecture. This format would be complementary to the security interests of the USA and EU and fill the already created gap in the Balkans.

In this regard, Türkiye does not need to create a separate security sphere in the Balkans and become another power competing for dominance; instead, its comparative advantage lies in binding defense and security cooperation to economic development, infrastructure, diplomacy and regional integration. Türkiye can act as a bridge between competing geopolitical influences and serve as an anchor for a more balanced and stable Balkan security order.

Author: Prof. Dr. Mevludin Ibish

Dr. Mevludin Ibish is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science and International Relations at International Balkan University, North Macedonia. His expertise in research and analyses are the Balkans, Turkiye, the region of the Caucasus, and the Middle East, given special attention to new political and regional developments, political history, political parties, society, and political systems.

*The views in this article belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect Yeni Şafak's editorial policy.