Yugoslavia - What Really Happened

[Arlind]

@Nević Nenad, you call for the storming of Kosova and explicitly say 'god help anyone that stands in our way' and I am the one that is messed up in the head??

The others, I get that I'm going very much against the narrative that's accepted here (and ofc I could be to whatever extent wrong) but the reactions here are extreme, as if I'm calling for the storming and killing of any of your nations. Maybe something to think about.

 

[Beau]

The others, I get that I'm going very much against the narrative that's accepted here

I don't think you "get" anything, nor are you trying. You are simply arguing for the sake of arguing at this point, being a shitposter. It's boring at this point. You belong on a Reddit forum.

(and ofc I could be to whatever extent wrong) but the reactions here are extreme, as if I'm calling for the storming and killing of any of your nations. Maybe something to think about.

Hilarious that you would say that considering it's exactly how you've behaved since the beginning and you've shown zero inclination to think about anything that's been said to you.

 

[Nević Nenad]

@Nević Nenad, you call for the storming of Kosova and explicitly say 'god help anyone that stands in our way' and I am the one that is messed up in the head??

The others, I get that I'm going very much against the narrative that's accepted here (and ofc I could be to whatever extent wrong) but the reactions here are extreme, as if I'm calling for the storming and killing of any of your nations. Maybe something to think about.

You got it!

Risking to repeat myself here, but:

 

[Joe]

@Nević Nenad, you call for the storming of Kosova and explicitly say 'god help anyone that stands in our way' and I am the one that is messed up in the head??

That's not what he said, you clearly have trouble reading and understanding English.

 

[Arlind]

Kosovo, will be stormed when NATO gone and got back to statehood of Serbia, god help anyone who gets in the way, but lets wait on that too.

He did not now, did he Joe. Yeah, that's the issue here.. me not understanding written English.

 

[Joe]

He did not now, did he Joe. Yeah, that's the issue here.. me not understanding written English.

Yeah, he did not, and yeah, you clearly can't understand English.

I'll explain, and that'll be the last time I respond to you, because there is clearly something very wrong with you.

Nević wrote a list of "takes" on different Balkan peoples, and SPECIFICALLY said at the end (although it was already clear)

"That's how average Serb sees the world around him"

So he was presenting stereotypical takes on the different Balkan nations and peoples FROM THE POV OF THE AVERAGE SERB.

He was not making a personal opinion.

Like I said, this forum is not for you, for many reasons, but the main one being that you appear to be brain damaged.

 

[thorbiorn]

Considering what Joe wrote:

I think anyone invested in this topic would do well to first and foremost understand the Yugoslav war(s) in the 1990s in the context of Western involvement. A person should find it much more difficult to engage in divisive "us and them" argumentation and finger-pointing on the matter when they fully and clearly understand that that was, and still is, the primary goal of the USA for the entire region.

Perspectives on what happened in Yugoslavia in the period of the fracturing, may in part be based on what happened in the years after the break-up and in particular the relations with NATO and the EU. I looked up the different areas and countries of the former Yugoslavia, concerning their relations with NATO.

NATO in the Former Yugoslavia and Albania
Albania, NATO since 2009 See Albania-NATO relations
Bosnia and Herzegovina, "was invited by NATO to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP) in April 2010.[7]" (Wiki for Member states of NATO) See also: Bosnia and Herzegovina–NATO relations
Croatia, NATO since 2009 See Croatia–NATO relations
Kosovo (Wiki, the area is not recognized by Serbia.), Regarding NATO, see for instance, the Wiki for Kosovo Force, which explains:

The Kosovo Force (KFOR) is a NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo.[2] Its operations are gradually reducing until Kosovo's Security Force, established in 2009, becomes self-sufficient.[3]

KFOR entered Kosovo on 12 June 1999,[4] one day after the United Nations Security Council adopted the UNSC Resolution 1244. At the time, Kosovo was facing a grave humanitarian crisis, with military forces from Yugoslavia in action against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in daily engagements. Nearly one million people had fled Kosovo as refugees by that time, and many permanently did not return.[3]

KFOR is gradually transferring responsibilities to the Kosovo Police and other local authorities. Currently, 28 states contribute to the KFOR, with a combined strength of approximately 3,800 military personnel.[5]

The mission was initially called Operation Joint Guardian. In 2004, the codename for the mission was changed to Operation Joint Enterprise.

North Macedonia, NATO, 2020 North Macedonia–NATO relations
Montenegro, NATO, 2017 Montenegro–NATO relations
Serbia, - See Serbia–NATO relations
Slovenia, NATO since 2004 and thus the first country to join. There is no Wiki, but there is a report by a student, Noah Veltman. See SLOVENIA AND NATO
The explanation for "student" is on the Home page which begins:

This website is the result of a course on European integration at the Overseas Studies Program of Stanford in Berlin.
The authors of the different contributions are students of the European Union class.

In the article about Slovenia and NATO, the author writes that Slovenia 'can, in effect, serve as a “Gateway to the Balkans,”' and "By extending NATO’s borders to the southeast, it further extends its ability to operate “out of area” in nearby regions." Fortunately for NATO, Slovenia was the first country to join.

About NATO in Europe, there are numerous articles on SOTT and the Forum. Here is yet another like the following opinion piece by Grey Anderson and Thomas Meaney from July 11, 2023: NATO Isn’t What It Says It Is, published in the New York Times. It is behind a paywall, but accessible here from Indian Strategic Studies. Here are a few paragraphs:

[...]
But NATO, from its origins, was never primarily concerned with aggregating military power. Fielding 100 divisions at its Cold War height, a small fraction of Warsaw Pact manpower, the organization could not be counted on to repel a Soviet invasion and even the continent’s nuclear weapons were under Washington’s control. Rather, it set out to bind Western Europe to a far vaster project of a U.S.-led world order, in which American protection served as a lever to obtain concessions on other issues, like trade and monetary policy. In that mission, it has proved remarkably successful.

Many observers expected NATO to close shop after the collapse of its Cold War rival. But in the decade after 1989, the organization truly came into its own. NATO acted as a ratings agency for the European Union in Eastern Europe, declaring countries secure for development and investment. The organization pushed would-be partners to adhere to a liberal, pro-market creed, according to which — as President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser put it — “the pursuit of democratic institutions, the expansion of free markets” and “the promotion of collective security” marched in lock step. European military professionals and reform-minded elites formed a willing constituency, their campaigns boosted by NATO’s information apparatus.

When European populations proved too stubborn, or undesirably swayed by socialist or nationalist sentiments, Atlantic integration proceeded all the same. The Czech Republic was a telling case. Faced with a likely “no” vote in a referendum on joining the alliance in 1997, the secretary general and top NATO officials saw to it that the government in Prague simply dispense with the exercise; the country joined two years later. The new century brought more of the same, with an appropriate shift in emphasis. Coinciding with the global war on terrorism, the “big bang” expansion of 2004 — in which seven countries acceded — saw counterterrorism supersede democracy and human rights in alliance rhetoric. Stress on the need for liberalization and public sector reforms remained a constant.

[...]

Whatever the levels of expenditure, it is remarkable how little military capability Europeans get for the outlays involved. Lack of coordination, as much as penny-pinching, hamstrings Europe’s ability to ensure its own security. By forbidding duplication of existing capabilities and prodding allies to accept niche roles, NATO has stymied the emergence of any semiautonomous European force capable of independent action. As for defense procurement, common standards for interoperability, coupled with the sheer size of the U.S. military-industrial sector and bureaucratic impediments in Brussels, favor American firms at the expense of their European competitors. The alliance, paradoxically, appears to have weakened allies’ ability to defend themselves.

Yet the paradox is only superficial. In fact, NATO is working exactly as it was designed by postwar U.S. planners, drawing Europe into a dependency on American power that reduces its room for maneuver. Far from a costly charity program, NATO secures American influence in Europe on the cheap. U.S. contributions to NATO and other security assistance programs in Europe account for a tiny fraction of the Pentagon’s annual budget — less than 6 percent by a recent estimate. And the war has only strengthened America’s hand. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, roughly half of European military spending went to American manufacturers. Surging demand has exacerbated this tendency as buyers rush to acquire tanks, combat aircraft and other weapons systems, locking into costly, multiyear contracts. Europe may be remilitarizing, but America is reaping the rewards.
[...]

One of the authors, Grey Anderson, was interviewed by Democracy Now, What Is the Point of NATO? Historian Grey Anderson on How U.S. Has Used Alliance to Strengthen Power and a clip appeared in a Tweet:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1679833809057923074

which is part of an interview transcribed in

When the article in NYT read: "NATO acted as a ratings agency for the European Union in Eastern Europe, declaring countries secure for development and investment." it is also of interest to learn about the development of the relationship with the The European Union
The Wiki for Member state of the European Union (Wiki) says that Croatia, joined the EU on 1 July 2013, while Slovenia joined the EU 1 May, 2004. That is both after they had joined NATO. Since then no other country has joined, though several have joined NATO, but negotiations are underway. There was an article from Reuters, written in 2022, but it is probably still relevant. Notice the comments from the US and President Biden, keeping in mind what was said about the role of NATO for the US in the article quoted earlier:

Albania, North Macedonia finally start EU membership talks​

By Robin Emmott and Marine Strauss
July 19, 20224:28 PM GMT+2Updated 2 years ago

BRUSSELS, July 19 (Reuters) - Albania and North Macedonia began membership talks with the European Union on Tuesday, overcoming a series of obstacles thrown up by EU governments despite an original promise to begin negotiations in mid-2018.

The start of formal negotiations to allow the two Balkan countries to eventually join the world's largest trading bloc are a breakthrough but have revealed the EU's lack of appetite for further enlargement, particularly in northern Europe.

"You have shown strategic patience, in abundance," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the leaders of Albania and North Macedonia alongside the Czech prime minister, whose country holds the six-month presidency of the EU.

U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the start of talks, saying Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 made an integrated Europe more important than ever.

"A democratic, secure, and prosperous Western Balkans remains essential to this vision," Biden said in a statement, restating U.S. policy "for a Europe whole, free, and at peace."

"The steps that the EU, Albania, and North Macedonia have taken in recent days should inspire all EU aspirants in the region to increase their commitment to strengthening their democracies," he added.

The United States, which in March 1999 led a NATO bombing campaign to protect Kosovo's ethnic Albanians from Serbian forces, has long promoted EU integration in the Balkans.

Despite a recommendation by the EU's Executive Commission for the two countries to start talks four years ago, first the German and Dutch parliaments, then France's president and then Bulgaria's government each took their turn to hold up the process with different demands of the two hopefuls.

"The European future is within your reach. I wish you the swiftest possible path," Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said.
Although already both NATO members, Albania and North Macedonia were victims of a political backlash in member states against migration from outside the bloc.

That reached a low point in September last year, when the 27 EU governments could not agree to uphold a guarantee of future membership to the six Balkan countries once promised a place in the club.

Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia have all been promised a place in the EU, once they fulfill tough economic, political, military, social and legal reforms.

While that guarantee has now been reinstated, Bulgaria blocked any further progress until North Macedonia, which had already changed its name to satisfy Greece, agreed to amend the constitution to recognise a Bulgarian minority.

On July 16, lawmakers in North Macedonia passed a French-brokered deal to resolve the dispute so that Sofia could lift its veto on enlargement.

"We know this is not the beginning of the end, this is just the end of the beginning," said Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, whose country's progress was tied by the EU to North Macedonia.

EU membership talks and reforms could still take years, EU officials said.

Get the latest news and expert analysis about the state of the global economy with Reuters Econ World. Sign up here.

Reporting by Robin Emmott and Marine Strauss; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Jonathan Oatis

There are these Wikis for the various countries and their relations with the European Union.
Accession of Albania to the European Union
Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union
Accession of Kosovo to the European Union
Accession of Montenegro to the European Union
Accession of North Macedonia to the European Union
Accession of Serbia to the European Union

This background of the EU and NATO relations is part of what influences people in the different Balkan states when they now many years later try to interpret What Really Happened to Yugoslavia. One aspect is that it is not realistic to expect any interest from either NATO or the EU to promote a narrative that does not place them in an auspicious light.

 

[Revolucionar]

I remember that everyone had a job and my (really small) town had at least 3 mayor factories that employed people from the town and surrounding areas. That was the case all around - every bigger city (one might say) had at least some industry and employment rate was very high.

Yeah everyone had a job and that's why the whole thing fell apart as it did. You had two people working the wardrobe in each factory, for Christ's sake. It was ridiculous and the mentality that was borne from this Yugoslav way of thinking and working is holding ex-Yu countries back to this day. Taking 2 hour breaks all the time, drinking coffee at bars at all hours of the day, not owning your responsibilities, because there's always someone else who'll take care of it, finding ways to circumvent the law, the black market economy, smuggling, etc, etc....

People bought local/national products as the country produced everything - from needle to washing machine.

...and almost all of it was sub-par quality. Stuff may have been alright back in the 60s, but by the late 80s, nothing moved forward with the times and actually even regressed. Almost all of these companies became utter garbage by the 80s.

I think anyone invested in this topic would do well to first and foremost understand the Yugoslav war(s) in the 1990s in the context of Western involvement. A person should find it much more difficult to engage in divisive "us and them" argumentation and finger-pointing on the matter when they fully and clearly understand that that was, and still is, the primary goal of the USA for the entire region.

I'm not saying that this was not the case, but I'm still not seeing any actual evidence of this. It's all based on what we know NATO did later on. What sort of effect could NATO even have had inside Yu in the 80s? I would say it was pretty limited.

The case stands for PTB wanting and actively working on ‘balkanisation’, but in the end that’s just the same thing they do over and over again everywhere, and there’s ever so much they can do if the ground isn’t fertile. So the slaughters and butcherings are still completely on us, and that type of thing doesn’t come from a vacuum or from true brotherhood and unity.

Agreed, although I'm still not seeing actual evidence that they wanted to rip Yugoslavia apart from the outset. More likely that they tried to keep it together but brought into the western system as a whole.

I’ve just remembered there was an article on Index a while ago, something along the lines of suppression in general, religion in particular. There were people who agreed fully, but a lot of commentators seriously protested saying it wasn’t true at all. I don’t know why that is, but in my hometown it was as it was. Pretty weird when you think about it, and just as a pure speculation - maybe it used to be more oppressive everywhere, but with time things substantially loosened up, especially further along the 80’s, just that my hometown never got the memo.

I come from a really small place in Dalmatia. My next door neighboor was an old guy who was a professional snitch. If you had enough of these guys walking about, the village or city felt suppressed, if not, it felt free. It was pretty similar to how they kept people in line in 1984., the novel, only they didn't have enough people to police everyone.

1988..., that is Yugoslavia, for those who dare to pronounce the word. What do those born in that time, in that place, think of the view of Marina Abramović when she says:

I think nothing of what she says. I was born in Croatia that was one of the constituent republics of Yugoslavia at the time, and I'm an ethnic Croatian (not that I really care or am particularly proud to be one, especially these days). There were very few that identified as Yugoslav throughout its existence. Which was one of the reasons it fell apart, because, by trying to erase ethnic differences, they just amplified them. Basic human psychology. But no wonder the Yugoslav authorities got it so badly wrong since they were mostly simple working class people with no real idea of how to run a country, especially one as complicated as Yugoslavia.

"Homeland War" is that what the English Wiki calls the Croatian War of Independence? or in Russian:
Война в Хорватии (War in Croatia)?

That's right. That's what it's called in Croatia.

And for the "croatian war", that's mostly nicely tailored narratives for the programing of young croatians. In reality it was civil war instigated from a side, with two parts of croatian citizens fighting with each other. One part is croatians citizens with Croatian nationality, helped and backed by the CIA and the West. (the West also instigated the war) The other part is croatian citizens with serbian nationality who were minority in Croatia. They were helped and backed by Serbia (then known as Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). The goal was dismantling of Yugoslavia, subjugating new countries to the West. The part with Croatian Croatians won with the help of the West, and banished some 300.000 their citizens Serbian Croatians to Serbia (worth mentioning that they didn't have anything with Serbia, they were "born and raised" in Croatia for centuries).

The moment Serbia (or the JNA) entered Croatia and attacked cities that had nothing to do with the internal conflict, it ceased to be a civil war. Actually, it wasn't even a war until that point. It was mostly protests with a few people dead over the course of more than a year.

Namely, it is not an established fact that only Tuđman was supported by CIA, the only fact is that CIA and PTB in general obviously worked hard on instigating the war (along with Yugoslavia splitting), and this wasn’t exactly like working one-sidedly against huge and powerful Russia, they had to work all sides, and they certainly had a lot of convenient material to pick and choose from to find the ones that would ignite the flame the most.

Still, this is all conjecture and no actual evidence that the CIA had much sway in Yugoslavia and what the extent of it may have been.

But it is not established that it was so from the start, especially in ‘91, when huge part of the fiercest fighting in Croatia was happening, quite the contrary, I would as objectively as I can say the whole world was standing aside with hands folded and arms embargos, white helmet here and there, watching who will prevail among those savages butchering each other.

Milošević’s fall happened sometime later on.

That's right. I think this indicates that the west wanted Milosevic to take over. When he failed, they turned on him. Conjecture, of course.

And can you honestly say that just like the media in Croatia was congested with propaganda inspiring the lowest of nationalistic tendences against Serbs prior to, and most significantly during the war, that Serbian media wasn’t exactly the same in regard to Croats? (I don’t have a real grasp of Serbian media of the time, nor of today, but I’ve seen some studies on media coverage in the Balkans during the conflict, which included all sides). Or dunno, you really think Croatian media was financed from the west, but Serbian somehow didn't at all, that was only and exclusively workings of Serbia?

Read this research paper to get a good grasp on what the media atmosphere was in Serbia drung the 3 years leading up to the war. https://www.researchgate.net/public...course_Letters_to_Politika_Belgrade_1988-1991
Here's an excerpt that sums how things went down pretty well:

The 1980s in Yugoslavia were a time of extraordinary social, political and economic
upheaval. On the economic front, the decade was marked by falling incomes, rising
poverty and unemployment, rampant inflation, collapsing investments and austerity in an
effort to service foreign debts, all while struggling to reform the large socialist enterprises
and make their products competitive on international markets (Lydall 1989; Archer et al.
2016). At the same time as Yugoslavia struggled with an economic crisis of
unprecedented proportions, the political leaderships of its six constituent republics, two
autonomous provinces, and the ruling League of Communists (Savez komunista
Jugoslavije—SKJ) were in the midst of a protracted conflict over the country’s
constitutional system, while the academic elites and the general public were engaged in
an often vicious process of re-evaluation of the country’s recent past (Ramet 2006). In the
constitutional conflict, the two principal camps could best be labelled unitarist and
federalist. The unitarist camp was led by Serbia, which insisted that the solutions to the
economic crisis lay in greater centralisation and in curtailing the powers of the republic’s
two autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. The federalist camp, led by
Slovenia, insisted that the solution to the economic crisis lay in more liberalisation and
decentralisation of political and economic decision-making. In the conflict over
Yugoslavia’s recent history, the primary bone of contention was the position of Serbia in
Titoist socialism. Serbian academics questioned the fairness of the political system
instituted after World War II and began to see it as a betrayal of the sacrifices Serbs
suffered in the war, bringing the topic of genocide (almost exclusively anti-Serb and
supposedly spanning centuries until the present day) to the fore of public discourse
(Dragović-Soso 2002). Cross-ethnic cooperation under the slogan of ‘brotherhood and
unity’, which brought Tito’s partisans victory in World War II, was set aside in favour of
narratives of interethnic carnage where even communists of other nationalities could no
longer be trusted (Banac 1992; Budding 1998). Public discourse became saturated with
what Sindbæk (2012, p. 12) called a ‘cardinal theme’of World War II revision in the
historical culture of Serbia’s society at the time. In other words, constitutional problems
were grafted onto economic problems, and both were further grafted onto simmering
long-standing national questions and conflicts that had remained unresolved over more
than four decades of Yugoslavia’s socialist regime, which had come to power after the
interethnic violence of World War II (Haug 2012).
The economic crisis and the inability of the communist leaderships of the eight republics
and provinces to find credible policy solutions or to resolve the constitutional impasse
steadily eroded the legitimacy of the one-party state. As was the case with other socialist
countries of Eastern Europe at the time, Yugoslavia’s communists struggled to maintain
control, but with one crucial difference. Yugoslav society was freer than those behind the
Iron Curtain and its citizens increasingly expressed their frustrations in the form of
strikes, protests and public campaigns (Archer et al.2016). Particularly important was the
campaign of protests by the Kosovo Serbs against their alleged discrimination at the
hands of the province’s Albanian majority (Vladisavljević2008). Slobodan Milošević,
who was the leader of the League of Communists of Serbia at the time, recognised the
mobilising power of these protests in the search for his regime’slegitimacy and for
greater power in the republic and the federation. Starting in the summer of 1988,
Miloševićused the state and party apparatus under his control to transform the sporadic
and limited protest rallies of the Kosovo Serbs into travelling mass events directed
against the ‘bureaucrats’and the party elite disloyal to him. It was the largest campaign
of protests and demonstrations in socialist Eastern Europe during the late 1980s, and soon
became known as the ‘anti-bureaucratic revolution’(Ramet 2006). While this campaign
helped him consolidate power in Serbia, it ultimately precipitated the collapse of the federal
League of Communists in January 1990. In the first democratic elections, which took place
in spring and autumn of 1990, the communists/socialists remained in power in Milošević’s
Serbia and Montenegro, but lost in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Hercegovina and
Macedonia. The scene was gradually being set for actual armed conflicts, which
commenced in the summer of 1991.
The ‘anti-bureaucratic revolution’would not have been possible without the critical
contribution of the largest media houses, which were controlled by the Miloševićregime,
particularly the state-run television and the main Belgrade broadsheet Politika.Politika
was the newspaper of record in Serbia, with a history of seriousness and reliability
spanning more than eight decades and a readership disproportionally among the
intellectual and more ideologically conservative members of the Serbian communist elite.
Under the editorship of Milošević’s close associate Živorad Minović, however, it became
one of the strongest weapons in the arsenal of the Miloševićregime. As one of its former
editors put it, Politika’s pages at the time became ‘an unrestrained eruption of not only
cheap homespun pseudo-patriotism, chauvinism, and uncontrolled political gossip, but
also an eruption of blind hatred towards Albanians, Croats, Muslims, Slovenes,
Macedonians …and “Serb traitors”’ (Nenadović1996, p. 607). One of the more notable
ways in which Minović and his staff achieved that was by opening Politika’s pages to the
contributions of its readership. ‘Politika has no right to think differently from the people’,
Minovićstated at the time (Kurspahić2003, p. 46) and the section ‘Echoes and
Reactions’ was the perfect means to achieve this unity of thought. Between the summer
of 1988 and the spring of 1991, ‘Echoes and Reactions’ published more than 4,000 letters
from readers from all sorts of backgrounds. Unsurprisingly, the initial contributions were
published concurrently with the first protest of the Kosovo Serbs in the capital of
Vojvodina Novi Sad in July 1988, which marked the beginning of the ‘anti-bureaucratic
revolution’. The section was unceremoniously shut down in March 1991, concurrently
with the wave of opposition protests against the Miloševićregime on the streets of
Belgrade. Apparently, the time had come for Politika to start thinking differently from the
people.

And with all of the Tuđman’s grievous faults and doings, I am yet to see proof for a Serb (what you would call Serbian Croatian) in any way harmed in 1990, to be used as justification for starting Balvan revolution during that summer.

There is none. It was spun from whole cloth by Milosevic and his media.

Why I would most definitely call it a war is because fights weren’t limited to areas with ethnic Serbian majority, but lot of the areas fought for, some even eventually occupied, had Croatian majority, but the other side still wanted to take them and separate from Croatia with arms, and made non-Serbs flee in the process (to avoid going into all of those JNA discussions, or when was the exact moment Croatia was internationally recognized, don’t know enough how armies operate, don’t care enough).

Serbia had a very public goal of creating a Greater Serbia with borders on the Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica line. Crta Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica – Wikipedija
Read up on Greater Serbia here: Velika Srbija – Wikipedija
The article is pretty accurate even if it is on Wiki.

Milosevic was cooperative, or tried to be, but that wasn't in the script. Actually whatever he would do, it would end up the same it did end up, because for the West that was the easiest way to dismantle Yugoslavia. If the West cooperate with Milosevic, it would end up in Serbia as smaller Yugoslavia, and that was a big no to the West. Which was shown later with continued destruction of Yugoslavia (or Serbia), even when it was already under West's dominance.

Milosevic didn't want to back down after he was dropped by the west and that's why he was ultimately destroyed. I definitely get shades of Milosevic when looking at Zelenski these past few years. My conjecture based on what I know.

That's true. Serbs tend to have that imperialistic view: "we are old, we had country when your grand papa was on the tree, and your grand mama was eating the bugs. Our wooden fences are older than the USA!". But, you probably didn't look at, for example Hungarians, they are even worse. Greeks - far worse than anyone. Its maybe that just Serbs caught your attention.

There you go. You said it yourself. Serbs were the imperialists inside Yugoslavia and the other nations weren't having it. Greeks and Hungarians didn't concern Croatians at the time. They had dealings with the Greeks more than a 1000 years ago and eneded their long relationship with the Hungarians some 80 years earlier.

 

[Nević Nenad]

Yeah everyone had a job and that's why the whole thing fell apart as it did. You had two people working the wardrobe in each factory, for Christ's sake. It was ridiculous and the mentality that was borne from this Yugoslav way of thinking and working is holding ex-Yu countries back to this day. Taking 2 hour breaks all the time, drinking coffee at bars at all hours of the day, not owning your responsibilities, because there's always someone else who'll take care of it, finding ways to circumvent the law, the black market economy, smuggling, etc, etc....

...and almost all of it was sub-par quality. Stuff may have been alright back in the 60s, but by the late 80s, nothing moved forward with the times and actually even regressed. Almost all of these companies became utter garbage by the 80s.

I'm not saying that this was not the case, but I'm still not seeing any actual evidence of this. It's all based on what we know NATO did later on. What sort of effect could NATO even have had inside Yu in the 80s? I would say it was pretty limited.

Agreed, although I'm still not seeing actual evidence that they wanted to rip Yugoslavia apart from the outset. More likely that they tried to keep it together but brought into the western system as a whole.

I come from a really small place in Dalmatia. My next door neighboor was an old guy who was a professional snitch. If you had enough of these guys walking about, the village or city felt suppressed, if not, it felt free. It was pretty similar to how they kept people in line in 1984., the novel, only they didn't have enough people to police everyone.

I think nothing of what she says. I was born in Croatia that was one of the constituent republics of Yugoslavia at the time, and I'm an ethnic Croatian (not that I really care or am particularly proud to be one, especially these days). There were very few that identified as Yugoslav throughout its existence. Which was one of the reasons it fell apart, because, by trying to erase ethnic differences, they just amplified them. Basic human psychology. But no wonder the Yugoslav authorities got it so badly wrong since they were mostly simple working class people with no real idea of how to run a country, especially one as complicated as Yugoslavia.

That's right. That's what it's called in Croatia.

The moment Serbia (or the JNA) entered Croatia and attacked cities that had nothing to do with the internal conflict, it ceased to be a civil war. Actually, it wasn't even a war until that point. It was mostly protests with a few people dead over the course of more than a year.

Still, this is all conjecture and no actual evidence that the CIA had much sway in Yugoslavia and what the extent of it may have been.

That's right. I think this indicates that the west wanted Milosevic to take over. When he failed, they turned on him. Conjecture, of course.

Read this research paper to get a good grasp on what the media atmosphere was in Serbia drung the 3 years leading up to the war. https://www.researchgate.net/public...course_Letters_to_Politika_Belgrade_1988-1991
Here's an excerpt that sums how things went down pretty well:



There is none. It was spun from whole cloth by Milosevic and his media.

Serbia had a very public goal of creating a Greater Serbia with borders on the Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica line. Crta Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica – Wikipedija
Read up on Greater Serbia here: Velika Srbija – Wikipedija
The article is pretty accurate even if it is on Wiki.

Milosevic didn't want to back down after he was dropped by the west and that's why he was ultimately destroyed. I definitely get shades of Milosevic when looking at Zelenski these past few years. My conjecture based on what I know.

There you go. You said it yourself. Serbs were the imperialists inside Yugoslavia and the other nations weren't having it. Greeks and Hungarians didn't concern Croatians at the time. They had dealings with the Greeks more than a 1000 years ago and eneded their long relationship with the Hungarians some 80 years earlier.

You are such a great example of so called "croatian" post war propaganda (actually NATO's propaganda. Which goal is to prepare you for yet another war). Seems that after all being said here to you and Arlind, you still don't understand anything. I must assume you are having some cognitive problems.

In that sense, almost EVERYTHING you wrote is propaganda rubbish, and your wishful thinking. After this, I'm going to block you (I don't deal with the crap really). Till then, this still is the best answer:




And good luck with that way of thinking!

 

[Possibility of Being]

I'm not saying that this was not the case, but I'm still not seeing any actual evidence of this. It's all based on what we know NATO did later on. What sort of effect could NATO even have had inside Yu in the 80s? I would say it was pretty limited.

Yugoslavia was in USSR's influence zone. It had to stop.

The British kept a close eye on the Balkans since, more or less, the Crimean war (19th century) trying to make sure "there is a balance" as they saw it between main powers in the region. Then there was the WWI which started thank to our Western plotters and provocateurs from a big chaos in the Balkans. WWII was not much different with their "divide and conquer" usual tactics. Then on the British initiative, the US started importing Balkan nazi- and fascist supporters and collaborators to create of them an armed opposition to their evil Communist regimes. They failed and it was one of the biggest CIA's defeats. Do you think they would just give up and back off with the tail between their legs? Really? As long as the ex-Yu countries are happy to accept poisoned baits and keep fighting against each other instead of forming a united front against the real invaders, the axis of evil, nothing is going to change. Well, maybe except a further partition to even smaller and weaker semi-states. OSIT.

 

[Z...]

Yeah everyone had a job and that's why the whole thing fell apart as it did. You had two people working the wardrobe in each factory, for Christ's sake. It was ridiculous and the mentality that was borne from this Yugoslav way of thinking and working is holding ex-Yu countries back to this day. Taking 2 hour breaks all the time, drinking coffee at bars at all hours of the day, not owning your responsibilities, because there's always someone else who'll take care of it, finding ways to circumvent the law, the black market economy, smuggling, etc, etc....

I wouldn’t say this was the norm. Majority of people worked hard and had a good standard of living. Yugoslavia had the best education system in the world. Same goes for health care.

...and almost all of it was sub-par quality. Stuff may have been alright back in the 60s, but by the late 80s, nothing moved forward with the times and actually even regressed. Almost all of these companies became utter garbage by the 80s.

This is so not true. Yugoslav shipyards produced the best ships in the world.
My family had Obodin refrigerator that lasted over 20 years, same for Gorenje washing machine. Not to mention companies like Wartex which produced best Lewis jeans in the world, Jugoplastika, Mura, Alpina, Elan those were all superb products way ahead of it time. Our construction industry was awarded contracts all over the world and up until 90-ies was considered the best in teh word.
Croatian immunological institute was one of the major producers of snake anti venom fir the whole Europe. Now it doesn’t exist anymore although hundreds of people get bitten by snakes every year and it is extremely hard to procure anti-venom.
Those are just some examples but the list could go on and on.

I'm not saying that this was not the case, but I'm still not seeing any actual evidence of this. It's all based on what we know NATO did later on. What sort of effect could NATO even have had inside Yu in the 80s? I would say it was pretty limited.

Foreign agents and agitators were hard at work in Yugoslavia since early 70-ies.

Agreed, although I'm still not seeing actual evidence that they wanted to rip Yugoslavia apart from the outset. More likely that they tried to keep it together but brought into the western system as a whole.

Look harder.

I come from a really small place in Dalmatia. My next door neighboor was an old guy who was a professional snitch. If you had enough of these guys walking about, the village or city felt suppressed, if not, it felt free. It was pretty similar to how they kept people in line in 1984., the novel, only they didn't have enough people to police everyone.

This was not my experience.

I think nothing of what she says. I was born in Croatia that was one of the constituent republics of Yugoslavia at the time, and I'm an ethnic Croatian (not that I really care or am particularly proud to be one, especially these days). There were very few that identified as Yugoslav throughout its existence. Which was one of the reasons it fell apart, because, by trying to erase ethnic differences, they just amplified them. Basic human psychology.

Did you know that there were close to 3 million apatrids after the break up of Yugoslavia - ie people who genuinely felt as Yugoslavs.

But no wonder the Yugoslav authorities got it so badly wrong since they were mostly simple working class people with no real idea of how to run a country, especially one as complicated as Yugoslavia.

I think they were doing pretty good job especially comparing to leadership of present day banana republics that sprang from Yugoslavia.

That's right. That's what it's called in Croatia.

The moment Serbia (or the JNA) entered Croatia and attacked cities that had nothing to do with the internal conflict, it ceased to be a civil war. Actually, it wasn't even a war until that point. It was mostly protests with a few people dead over the course of more than a year.

JNA was stationed in Croatia before civil war.
They were mostly surrounded in there bases and retaliated only when they were attacked.
Remember the strangling of Macedonian soldier in Split by “peaceful protestors”.
Most of the JNA officers genuinely believed in brotherhood and unity and were betrayed by both Croatian or Serbian leadership.
In the end what was left of JNA withdrew peacefully from Croatia relinquishing all their bases and lots of weapons.

Still, this is all conjecture and no actual evidence that the CIA had much sway in Yugoslavia and what the extent of it may have been.

Right

That's right. I think this indicates that the west wanted Milosevic to take over. When he failed, they turned on him. Conjecture, of course.

I think it was more complicated than that.

Read this research paper to get a good grasp on what the media atmosphere was in Serbia drung the 3 years leading up to the war. https://www.researchgate.net/public...course_Letters_to_Politika_Belgrade_1988-1991
Here's an excerpt that sums how things went down pretty well:



There is none. It was spun from whole cloth by Milosevic and his media.

Serbia had a very public goal of creating a Greater Serbia with borders on the Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica line. Crta Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica – Wikipedija
Read up on Greater Serbia here: Velika Srbija – Wikipedija
The article is pretty accurate even if it is on Wiki.

Milosevic didn't want to back down after he was dropped by the west and that's why he was ultimately destroyed. I definitely get shades of Milosevic when looking at Zelenski these past few years. My conjecture based on what I know.

There you go. You said it yourself. Serbs were the imperialists inside Yugoslavia and the other nations weren't having it. Greeks and Hungarians didn't concern Croatians at the time. They had dealings with the Greeks more than a 1000 years ago and eneded their long relationship with the Hungarians some 80 years earlier.

Again it was far more complicated than that.

 

[Revolucionar]

You are such a great example of so called "croatian" post war propaganda (actually NATO's propaganda. Which goal is to prepare you for yet another war). Seems that after all being said here to you and Arlind, you still don't understand anything. I must assume you are having some cognitive problems.

In that sense, almost EVERYTHING you wrote is propaganda rubbish, and your wishful thinking. After this, I'm going to block you (I don't deal with the crap really). Till then, this still is the best answer:

View attachment 97794


And good luck with that way of thinking!

I have nothing to do with Arlind. This image you keep posting isn't funny, btw.

 

[Revolucionar]

Yugoslavia was in USSR's influence zone. It had to stop.

Actually, Yugoslavia was not really in USSR's influence zone. If it was in any zone, it was inside the Western influence zone. Look here Economy of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Wikipedia
Yugoslavia owed heaps of money to the West, not the USSR. The West propped up Yugoslavia almost since its inception and it would have fell apart much sooner without support from the West.

The British kept a close eye on the Balkans since, more or less, the Crimean war (19th century) trying to make sure "there is a balance" as they saw it between main powers in the region. Then there was the WWI which started thank to our Western plotters and provocateurs from a big chaos in the Balkans.

Funny you mention the British. It's a whole other can of worms. It's interesting to note that the Serbs worked for the British and even started WWI on their behalf. This is a big topic that spans decades and basically starts out with the 1848. revolutions across Europe that were instigated by agents of the Brits. The man who killed Franz Ferdinand was part of a group that came about during those times and they worked at the behest of the British. It's also interesting that the Austrian Empire was basically the only country where the revolutions of 1848. didn't take hold, one reason being that the Croatian Ban Jelačić put down the revolts in Vienna and Budapest.

Then on the British initiative, the US started importing Balkan nazi- and fascist supporters and collaborators to create of them an armed opposition to their evil Communist regimes. They failed and it was one of the biggest CIA's defeats.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Do you think they would just give up and back off with the tail between their legs? Really? As long as the ex-Yu countries are happy to accept poisoned baits and keep fighting against each other instead of forming a united front against the real invaders, the axis of evil, nothing is going to change. Well, maybe except a further partition to even smaller and weaker semi-states. OSIT.

Again, it seems that the basic counter-argument I'm getting in this thread is conjecture based on educated guesses.
Unfortunately, the first Yugoslavia, which had the chance to work out, was destroyed by the Germans and then the Commies took over the ashes and made an even bigger mess of it.

 

[Revolucionar]

I wouldn’t say this was the norm. Majority of people worked hard and had a good standard of living. Yugoslavia had the best education system in the world. Same goes for health care.

The standard of living was absolutely in the dumps. The 80s were horrific. Some people got along great because they had loans with fixed interest rates during a time of hyperinflation. More than 20% of the workforce worked abroad. Unemployment was way over 10%. You couldn't buy milk and you could drive your car either on even or uneven number dates. You had gasoline lines at gas stations and the prices were outrageous. Here's a great little sketch by the Yugoslav Monty Python from that time. Make sure to watch the rest of their material, as they chronicled the downfall of Yugoslavia quite well.

This is so not true. Yugoslav shipyards produced the best ships in the world.
My family had Obodin refrigerator that lasted over 20 years, same for Gorenje washing machine. Not to mention companies like Wartex which produced best Lewis jeans in the world, Jugoplastika, Mura, Alpina, Elan those were all superb products way ahead of it time. Our construction industry was awarded contracts all over the world and up until 90-ies was considered the best in teh word.
Croatian immunological institute was one of the major producers of snake anti venom fir the whole Europe. Now it doesn’t exist anymore although hundreds of people get bitten by snakes every year and it is extremely hard to procure anti-venom.
Those are just some examples but the list could go on and on.

Yeah, Yugoslavia was the best in everything. This is mythologizing, pure and simple. Some of the stuff was alright, but it didn't move with the times and the industry absolutely cratered during the 80s.

Foreign agents and agitators were hard at work in Yugoslavia since early 70-ies.

Can you provide evidence?

Look harder.

Can you point me in the right direction. I would sincerely love to find out.

This was not my experience.

You said yourself that your family was Yugoslav through and through. Of course you didn't have this experience. Besides, you were too young to understand things properly and I would recommend not basing your idea the reality of Yugoslavia on personal experience, in this case.

Did you know that there were close to 3 million apatrids after the break up of Yugoslavia - ie people who genuinely felt as Yugoslavs.

No, there were 710,394 Yugoslavs on the '91 census, which was 3%. In other words, very few.

I think they were doing pretty good job especially comparing to leadership of present day banana republics that sprang from Yugoslavia.

Yeah, great job they did. The country started to crash and burn in a matter of 35 years.

JNA was stationed in Croatia before civil war.
They were mostly surrounded in there bases and retaliated only when they were attacked.
Remember the strangling of Macedonian soldier in Split by “peaceful protestors”.
Most of the JNA officers genuinely believed in brotherhood and unity and were betrayed by both Croatian or Serbian leadership.
In the end what was left of JNA withdrew peacefully from Croatia relinquishing all their bases and lots of weapons.

This is wrong on so many levels, but let me just ask then, what happened in Vukovar? Was the city attacked by aliens, or what?
Another small point: was Ratko Mladić not an officer of the JNA who operated from Knin, the capital of the Serbian Autonomic Oblast in Croatia and attacked Croatian coastal cities using the militarz of the JNA? Ratko Mladić - Wikipedia

Again it was far more complicated than that.

Would love to dive in to the complexity here.

 

[Z...]

The standard of living was absolutely in the dumps. The 80s were horrific.

You were not even born then and yet you are so sure?
I have very fond memories of my early teenage years and I can assure you this is absolutely not true.