EU geopolitical positioning in multipolar world and its impact on the strategic determination of the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

Diverse strategic interests of the Anglo-Saxon countries, Central Europe, Eurasia, the seaborne empires (thalassocracy) and the land forces (tellurocracy) have intertwined and confronted in Europe for centuries. They exist in the form of the most important geopolitical concepts: Atlanticism, (Central European) Continentalism and Eurasianism. Although after the Second World War relations of these concepts created the character of the European integration and set it on the route, geopolitical aspects were neglected. The internal aspects of this phenomenon have been considered from the position of the European people's aspiration towards reconciliation, collaboration and common prosperity, whereas the foreign policy aspects have been considered exclusively from the position of the ideological confrontation of the two superpowers and their allies. The turning points of world politics during the period between two millennia - the collapse of the bipolar (ideological) world, the appearance of American hegemony, the process of creating a multipolar world, and the possibility of the European Union (EU) disintegration process have demanded a return to the international scene of geopolitical consideration of the EU integration background and its perspectives. During the Cold War period, along with the economic integration of European countries, their integration process within the North Atlantic Alliance, in which the United States played the key role, was also under way. Thus, since the end of the Second World War, the military and foreign policy discourse of the Western European countries has won the dominant Atlantic (thalassocratic) connotation. However, at the beginning of the new millennium, the EU faced significant (geo) political issues such as: firstly, survival or its disintegration, and, secondly, in the case of survival, possible directions of the Union geopolitical positioning as a result of the impact of the relation between the mentioned geopolitical concepts. From the standpoint of the Republic of Serbia, as a small country with an extremely sensitive geopolitical position and a clear commitment to the European future, consideration of these issues is fundamental to (re)defining its long-term strategic commitments. .

Keywords

• the european union
• the republic of serbia
• atlanticism
• central european continentalism
• eurasianism
• multipolar world
• geopolitics