The Yugoslav Wars: Causes and Consequences

The Yugoslav Wars

Since 1989, there has been a historic sprint. During the Cold War, it seemed that history was frozen. Any conflict event was East/West. Nobody really knew what was happening. From the 1990s, thawing conflicts and disputes accelerated:

Yugoslav Wars:

Source: Different ethnicities and support. South Slavic Union: Birth year 1921 of the country. Yugoslavia's constituent peoples had been outside of Europe. These towns have completely different traditions, history, and political projects. World War II showed these differences. All worked with Croatian and Serbian communists and anti-occupation forces. Yugoslavia was one of the few countries nobody (neither the Allies nor the other side) tried to take territory from. Marshal Tito had to redraw the map of the country. He gave the characteristic of a state to Bosnia. He wanted to balance the differences between Croats and Serbs. When Tito died, all tensions exploded.

Kosovo:

The first conflict to erupt. Milosevic wanted to subvert the Albanian majority. Serbian predominance was desired. Croats and Slovenes wanted to leave Yugoslavia. In 1991, battle erupted.

Factors:

1. The EU did not know what to do, and there was great division on the conflict. Russians supported Serbs, Croats with Germany, Slovenes with Austria and Germany, and Macedonians with Islamic countries. The U.S. and UK tried to move away from the conflict. The EU split completely in this conflict. Bosnia called for independence. The EU and others agreed not to recognize it. The next day, Germany recognized Bosnia, forcing others to recognize it.
2. Change of presidency in Yugoslavia. The Serbs did not want it and blocked the rotating mechanism. Slovenia declared independence.
3. Croatia problem: They wanted to separate with defined borders (with Serbs within its territory). Serbs also wanted to use the right of self-determination, and they wanted independence. In the Croatian Serb areas, they also requested it.

War against Croatian Serbs: A short, bloody war, resolved with an exchange of populations. Serbs and Croats did not want to be together. Serbia sent them to Kosovo.

The Bosnian conflict was significant. Croats and Serbs wanted to divide Bosnia. Most people were neither Croats nor Bosnian-Serbs. They just wanted to eliminate these people in Bosnia. An agreement was reached with U.S. intervention: the Dayton Accords, with the existence of a cauterized Serbian country. Bosnia was defeated for failing to impose the idea of ethnicity.

After Dayton, Bosnia became a protected country.