The Western Balkans are rearming again. Albania, Croatia, and Kosovo have established a partnership to conduct joint military exercises and enhance interoperability and capabilities against hybrid threats. Serbia is responding with a supply of Chinese supersonic missiles, a defense budget rising from $2.3 billion in 2024 to $2.7 billion in 2026, and closer military cooperation with Hungary.
The State of Israel has declined to choose sides because Jerusalem has forged defense partnerships on both sides of regional fault lines to preserve its regional geopolitical reach. The Jewish state’s next big fight could reveal strategic vulnerabilities that it no longer can afford.
Serbia is Israel’s primary defense partner in the Balkans. At the end of 2024, Belgrade inked a $335 million deal with Elbit Systems for a fleet of precision rocket artillery systems and Hermes 900 drones. In August 2025, Serbia finalized an agreement to buy $1.6 billion worth of more precise long-range missiles, drones, electronic warfare systems, and command-and-control systems, and to modernize most of its combat vehicles, which will continue through 2030.
Jerusalem has forged defense partnerships on both sides of regional fault lines to preserve its regional geopolitical reach.
The Belgrade-Jerusalem alliance ceased to be merely a contract for arms purchases. Israeli and Serbian companies now produce combat drones in Serbia and, in April 2026, Jerusalem and Belgrade also agreed to protocols to exchange classified defense information.
Serbia, too, supplies Israel. Exports of arms and munitions from Serbia to Israel, which stood at $3.25 million in 2023, rose to $134 million in December 2025. Cargo planes carried Serbian munitions to Israeli airbases during operations against Iranian-backed proxies. In the early weeks of the multi-front fighting, these deliveries were crucial for Jerusalem.
Hungary has become Israel’s second major Central European hub. Even though Budapest is going through a period of political change, the Hungarian army uses Israeli-made Spike anti-tank missiles, radar systems by Israel Aerospace Industries, and electronic warfare systems. This year, bilateral trade between Israel and Hungary neared $700 million, and around 150 Israeli companies operate in the Eastern European nation.
The Jewish state’s influence extends across the region’s political fissures. In 2020, Israel formally recognized Kosovo, and Pristina opened an embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the first Muslim-majority state to do so. In November 2025, Albania reached a deal with Elbit to acquire 155-mm howitzers, 120-mm mortars, and tactical drones, as well as to collaborate to bolster local defense manufacturing. Meanwhile, in January 2026, Croatia chose Rafael’s Trophy active-protection system for its Leopard 2A8 tanks within a €330 million framework.
The Jewish state has previously executed similar strategies, uniting Greece and Cyprus through joint military drills, intelligence sharing, and joint energy ventures to push back against Turkish hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean. The network in the Balkans is deliberately unstructured. Israel does not want a formal alliance, merely open access, industrial manufacturing capabilities, and administrations with a vested interest in maintaining such ties.
Conflict lays bare such reliance starkly. Jerusalem is unable to rely on the continued supply of U.S. munitions, European components, and transit via Mediterranean shipping lanes under duress. Collaborative drone production in Serbia and the construction of an indigenous defense sector in Albania provide an alternative production line for the Israeli sector in the event of supply chain disruptions. The Balkan nations cannot substitute for the annual $3.8 billion in American military assistance or Germany’s submarine collaboration. Instead, they grant the Jewish state the respite it requires if both options are cut off.
These links ensure each government involved in the region shares a concrete interest in the State of Israel’s security and render the Balkans a less accommodating arena for Iranian and Turkish influence.
Political dynamics play an equal role. During Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s administration, Hungary repeatedly leveraged its veto power within the European Union to stall unified resolutions aimed at harming Israel regarding the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza. Expanded connections in Eastern Europe do not end European Union diplomatic pressure, but they can make it more difficult to assemble a blocking consensus.
Turkey is seeking to expand its influence in the Balkans to advance its own aims. At the same time, Iran also attempts to exploit the region’s ethnic and religious divisions for smuggling operations and proxy warfare. Ankara has funneled billions into commercial and defense projects across the region, even establishing an ammunition facility in Kosovo. The Islamic Republic of Iran has similarly courted regional governments. None of those initiatives will negate such risks, and Israeli connections do not nullify them. Rather, these links ensure each government involved in the region shares a concrete interest in the State of Israel’s security and render the Balkans a less accommodating arena for Iranian and Turkish influence.
Opponents are right to fret about sensitive equipment reaching a troubled landscape. Jerusalem is not without caution, but its partnerships in Southeast Europe have gone beyond mere procurement. These relationships have yielded shared manufacturing agreements, the supply of ammunition, and the forging of diplomatic relations during times of crisis, precisely when other states have refused to act.
