Serbia in Light of the Global Recomposition

The article assesses the effects of the current global geopolitical recomposition on Serbia, especially in the light of the multidimensional consequences of the current war in Ukraine. The effects of the dominant policies of the main external factors—i.e., the United States, the European Union, Russia, and China—have been analysed from a geopolitical perspective, with the argument put forward being that, following the war in Ukraine, Serbia will find itself on the western side of a New Iron Curtain, which will fall across Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea as the main geopolitical consequence of current conflict in Ukraine. The aim of the article is to contribute to the existing scholarship in the field by the exploring issues yet to come into the focus of geopolitical analysis in the Serbian context: ‘green' initiatives, energy and climate change, and COVID-19 vaccines. All these have become extensions of the geopolitics and geo-economics of the key global powers in their efforts to position themselves as best they can in developing a multipolar world. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The COVID-19 Vaccines as Extension of Foreign Policies by Other Means

Existing knowledge of the geopolitics of public health and the coronavirus pandemic indicates that states, particularly the most powerful ones (the United States, China, Russia), have used the current global crisis to strengthen their influence worldwide, in line with their geopolitical, economic, and military aspirations. Geopoliticisation of the COVID-19 vaccines have not been explored so far. Based on the qualitative analysis of the media content and statis-tics on the vaccines' distribution, this article makes two arguments. First, these vaccines have become an extension of foreign policy by other means. Second, geopoliticisation of the distribution of vaccine contributes to an instrumentalisation of the pandemic, raising global insecurity and the destabilisation of states and economies on the periphery and semi-periphery. Due to this new Cold War between the ‘vaccine superpowers', the world has become divided into Western and the Eastern ‘vaccine-blocs'. Within this context, the chances for multilateral cooperation to counter global threats are on a downward trajectory. © Belgrade Centre for Security Policy.