ABSTRACT
Since Serbia started the process of capitalist restoration in 1990, different political forces have raised the issue of its accession to NATO. Unlike other so-called states in transition, which unanimously declared their path to NATO, Serbia has been in a different position due to its role in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. During the first ten years, which were marked by the Milošević regime, Serbia’s official position toward NATO was negative, not out of ideological reasons, but because NATO, as a military wing of the current capitalist states, supported war rivals of Serbia’s regime, and because of NATO's aggression against FR Yugoslavia in 1999. We argue that a different position of Milošević’s regime in the geopolitical events of the time would have quite certainly produced a positive attitude of that regime towards NATO since the administration did not have any principle ideological reasons to be anti-NATO. The change of government in 2000 meant transforming the attitude toward NATO. However, the new ruling coalition was composed of political parties with different attitudes toward NATO for ideological and geopolitical reasons. The ruling party, which nominally advocated Serbia’s military neutrality, supported participation in the programme Partnership for Peace. We intend to argue that the Serbian ruling and opposition political elites employ wrong reasons against the membership, i.e. for neutrality. They argue that their attitudes are connected with solving the Kosovo issue, and with their need to preserve good relations with Russia. On the other hand, they miss to argue about the very nature of NATO and explain whether Serbia’s military neutrality has any meaning in the context of their desired policies of European integration.
