Serbia may currently be one of the most important in-between spaces in today's world. Its fate will help which of the great powers will dominate this century. At the same time, the country is also a quiet test of American power regardless of who wins the White House this November.

Among other things, the magazine states this in its text Politico dedicated to the current geopolitical situation of Serbia, who writes that the country is in a geostrategic gray zone, caught between the authoritarian powers of Beijing and Moscow on the one hand and after several years of neglect by the United States and its European allies on the other.

As the Brussels portal writes, Serbia is currently not alone in this so-called gray zone, with it in the same basket are the other two other European countries Moldova and Georgia. Ukrainians fought for more than two years to remain free. While in Asia, the proxy battle between democracy and despotism is about Taiwan, the magazine states.

Will the hot-cold game with the big powers come to an end?

For now, Serbian leaders are leaning this way and that way, depending on the day, without explicitly choosing sides. But this fight will come to an end sooner rather than later.

Belgrade is a testimony to life in uncertainty. Sleek glass and metal towers line the Danube not far from deserted streets and buildings scarred by time, which are rarely seen in this European capital anymore. Graffiti in the city is everywhere, it is aggressive and refers to the past. To the NATO bombing, the war in Kosovo, but also to the wars of Serbia after the dissolution of SFRY, writes Politico.

For a week, Chinese flags flew across the capital in honor of a parliamentary delegation from Beijing that visited the country in May when Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a free trade agreement with Serbia. A week later, the German tricolor was also flying on the streets of the Serbian capital when Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country is the largest investor in Serbia, came to sign an agreement on behalf of Europe to ensure the supply of Serbian lithium - the media reports.

This was the picture when the French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Belgrade, who recently sold 12 French Rafale fighters to the Serbs. Zara and Hugo Boss brands are the main advertisements of the pedestrian shopping district in Belgrade. But at the same time, the local media is full of laudatory information about Vladimir Putin, the most popular foreign leader in Serbia, writes Politico.

The media notes why Serbia is in this political uncertainty and at the same time outside the European Union and NATO, but not completely in the arms of Putin and Xi?

Serbs have a lot to say when it comes to the past and their future. However, their place in the world will depend excessively on Washington's appetite to lead and win the new great power struggle for world supremacy. Thus the USA and its allies can shape the outcome in the region through a combination of soft and hard economic and diplomatic power.

For now, there are signs that they are awake to this challenge, for which there is not so much evidence that they have a focused strategy for this, the media reports.

Serbs like the EU and America more than the East

Serbs have good reasons for wanting to get closer to Europe and America. This is seen by those who are "important" in Belgrade who do not want to go on vacation or send their children and money to Moscow or Beijing.

While the country had strong economic growth of nearly 5 percent a year and unemployment down from 26 percent to 9 percent, Serbia performed poorly in this no man's land. Neighbors like Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria who joined the EU are doing better, and the Serbs are seeing it.

"We in Serbia have a map and we definitely know where we belong, and we belong to the European Union," says Marko Djuric, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, adding that Serbia is not a piece of the chessboard.

As a student, Djuric participated in the Resistance movement against Milosevic. This summer, at the invitation of US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Djuric was in Washington for a NATO summit and was the first Serbian foreign minister to ever attend such a meeting.

However, 25 years after the alliance waged war with Serbia, his presence drew little attention from the Serbian public, but it was remarkable.

"The Serbian leadership deliberately decided to invest in the United States." We have opened up for cooperation in all spheres - he said.

But neither Washington nor Brussels relied on Serbia. Their main goal seems to be to prevent Serbia from becoming a Russian satellite like Belarus, the media concludes in its analysis.

- Our biggest concern is the malign influence of Russia. We want Serbia to be aligned with the West, part of the system that opposes Russian expansionism - says a Western diplomat who asked to remain anonymous for the media.

Meanwhile, there are people on both sides of the Atlantic who want this Balkan country to be more politically close to their thinking.