Ethnic Nationalism and Regional Conflict

The Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia

W. Raymond Duncan

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367016692
• eBook ISBN: 9780429715938
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book examines ethnic conflicts of the former Soviet Union to indicate how turbulent the world has become in the post-Cold War era-and how difficult it has been to craft western security policies to address the turmoil. The author hopes to stimulate new thinking about international security.

1
Yugoslavia's Break-up

W. Raymond Duncan

Of all the regional conflicts in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the Balkans' ethnic savagery from 1991 onwards most vividly seized the attention of America and the West, By the time President Bill Clinton took office in January 1993, Yugoslavia had collapsed as a sovereign state. Ravaged by ethnic brutalities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (referred to as Bosnia henceforth), with a similar fate threatening Serb-dominated Kosovo, Yugoslavia became the scene of bloodbaths on a scale not seen in this part of the world since the Nazi atrocities of the 1930s and 1940s, American policy-makers in President George Bush's Administration initially tossed the ball to the Europeans to deal with the escalating conflicts. They in turn attempted one cease-fire after another, arms and aid blockades, humanitarian efforts, and feverish, ill-fated political negotiations to try to end the ethnic wars.

Yugoslavia's break-up consisted of not one, but several ethnic wars, some of which erupted in 1989-1990, all of which complicated conflict-management efforts by the outside world:

• Slovenes clashed with Serbs over Slovenia's drive for independence throughout 1989 and 1990, culminating with Ljubljana's withdrawal from Yugoslavia in June 1991 and subsequent battles with the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).¹ With Slovenia exiting Yugoslavia, Croatia followed suit, thus setting up conditions for more battles with Serbia.
• In Croatia, war erupted in part as a result of ethnic frictions between a militant Serb minority scattered inside Croatia and Croatian nationalists, and in part from Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's territorial expansion toward a "Greater Serbia" when Croatia declared its independence in June 1991.² UN peace-keeping efforts failed to prevent a renewed Croatian offensive in Serb-held areas in early 1993.
• Despite the evidence of what was happening in independent Slovenia and Croatia vis-à-vis the Serbs, Bosnia declared its independence in 1992. At this point three wars erupted: (1) a battle for territory between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats,³ (2) a fight for territory between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims throughout Bosnia, with Bosnian Serb militias led by Radovan Karadzic, backed by Milosevic and the JNA,⁴ and (3) a struggle for land between Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims.⁵ By the spring of 1993, beleaguered Bosnian Muslims faced not only Serbian "ethnic cleansing," but also a renewed battle against Bosnian Croats in a broad arc of territory north and west of Sarajevo that featured the kind of brutality often associated with the Serbs.⁶

Largely because American and West European policy makers were unprepared to deter the spreading battles by preemptive military intervention during the early stages of Yugoslavia's break-up, hostilities gathered momentum as Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991. Bosnia's independence on March 3, 1992, added fuel to the flames. By December 1992 Yugoslavia's tragedy included around 128,000 dead, over 500,000 refugees who had fled from the country, and three million Bosnians driven from their homes. At that time nearly 1.7 million people were at risk of starvation in Bosnia in the coming winter, and over 20,000 Bosnian women reportedly had been systematically raped in special camps where they were held. In the absence of taking early steps toward crisis prevention, America and the West ultimately faced the task of crisis management—which proved futile in deterring the carnage.

Serbian "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnian Muslims—witn its pattern or prison camps, mass killings, systematic rape of Bosnian women and other atrocities—especially shocked the Western world from 1992 onwards.⁷ The media's daily coverage of the fratricidal mayhem—newspapers, magazines and television heightening public awareness—added pressure to stop the blood bath, notably in the U.S. during a presidential campaign. In reacting to the Balkan atrocities, Bill Clinton as presidential candidate advanced the idea of arming the struggling Bosnians and bombarding Serb artillery in places like Serb-besieged Sarajevo.⁸ Once in office, however, he emphasized the "quagmire" aspects of Bosnia, about which little could be done.⁹ Still, by April 1993, the Clinton Administration had backed a UN-European Community (EC) peace plan sponsored by Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, named a special envoy to the peace talks, and pressed for greater enforcement of a "no fly zone" over Bosnia and for tightened economic sanctions against Serbia.¹⁰ U.S. efforts included a UN-sanctioned parachute drop of food and medicine into remote areas of Bosnia.¹¹

Given former Yugoslavia's importance as a possible prototype of future ethnic wars, its recent history in terms of American and European efforts to manage its conflicts, and the lessons it offers in regard to crisis prevention, the purposes of this chapter are threefold. Our analysis: (1) explores the historical roots of Yugoslavia's explosive ethnic conflict; (2) examines how, and in what ways, America and the West reacted to escalating tensions in the region; and (3) suggests some implications of this record for future U.S. national security decision making.

Toward these ends, we focus on:

• Yugoslavia's legacy of the past.
• Role of political elites in spawning national tensions.
• U.S., UN and West European security decision-making.
• Security lessons learned about Yugoslavia's break-up.

Because Yugoslavia arguably is the model of future ethnic wars, this chapter also looks at the U.S. and European national security decision making process as it unfolded in the Balkans. Our hope is to gain insight into how future leaders might attempt to craft crisis prevention measures before they reach the scale of another Yugoslavia. In the Balkans, as we shall see, America and the West did too little too late, failed to coordinate early deterrence efforts, and did not bring force to bear at a time when it probably would have done the most good.¹²

Yugoslavia's Legacy of the Past

What historic factors help account for former Yugoslavia's violent turmoil? At least three stand out: (1) Years of ethnic national tensions, (2) the presence of ethnic minorities inside Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina when they declared independence, and 3) forces reenforcing ancient ethnic antagonisms and hindering cooperative problem-solving as tensions escalated—such as poor economic conditions, Serbia's hard-line resistance to political liberalization in Yugoslavia's other republics, and competing republic ties with other countries.¹³

Historic Ethnic National Tensions

The legacy of ethnic national tensions in "Yugoslavia"—a term which means the land of the South Slavs (Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenes)—is best captured by key historical milestones. The Paris Peace Conference created the multinational state of Yugoslavia in 1918 out of elements of the empires of Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey following World War One.¹⁴ The Serbs were the largest national group in Yugoslavia—which initially was called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.¹⁵ The Serbs, who won independence from Turkish domination in 1878, constituted about 36 percent of the new state's population, while the Croats, the second largest group, comprised about 20 percent.¹⁶

The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes changed its name to Yugoslavia in 1929. It comprised a patchwork of seven separately-identifying ethnic groups whose ethnicity had crystallized into national consciousness during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Slavic Muslims, Slovenians, Montenegrins, and Macedonians—as well as over a dozen other distinguishable ethnic national groups.¹⁷ In effect, then, Yugoslavia was a sovereign state containing many separately-identifying national groups.¹⁸ Each brought to Yugoslavia its own legacy of the past—including perceived adversaries and defining characteristics of nationhood. Table 1.1 illustrates multi-ethnic national groups inside Yugoslavia.

The histories of Yugoslavia's nationalities were remarkably distinct, despite a common South Slav origin.¹⁹ Slovenia and Croatia in the north—the most prosperous regions—were part of the Hapsburg Empire, influenced by centuries of close contact with Austria, Hungary, and Italy, adoption of Roman Catholicism, use of a Latin alphabet, and orientation toward Western and Central

TABLE 1.1 Yugoslav Population by Nationality in 1981

Nationality	in 1000’s	Percent
Serbs	8,140	36.3
Croats	4,428	19.8
Muslims	2,000	8.9
Slovenians	1,754	7.8
Albanians	1,730	7.7
Macedonians	1,340	6.0
Montenegrins	509	2.6
Hungarians	427	1.9
Turks	101	0.4
Others	481	2.1
Un...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Ethnic Nationalism in the Post-Cold War Era
• 1 Yugoslavia's Break-up
• 2 World Turned Upside Down: Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union
• 3 Russo-Ukrainian Relations: The Containment Legacy
• 4 O Patria Mia: National Conflict in Mountainous Karabagh
• 5 Central Asia: Prospects for Ethnic and Nationalist Conflict
• 6 Ethnic Relations and Conflict in the Baltic States
• Conclusion: The Implications of Post-Soviet Conflicts for International Security
• About the Editors and Contributors