If the Cold War was still going on, would Yugoslavia still collapse?

What it says on the tin.

Considering Belgrade's routine flouting of Moscow and the fact that a continued Cold War would only give the West even more of a reason to try to undermine the efforts of a Communist state to centralize and push their influence into the Balkans (Isolating Albania is icing on the cake), then I imagine so. In fact, you might see the West push even harder and be willing to intervene more directly, particularly for Bosnia and even Macedonian Independence. Kosovo to Albania too, if they could rip that nation from the Communist orbit.
 
I don't think so. IOTL while the Cold War was going on Yugoslavs worried that, since they'd
broken away from Moscow, the Russians
might one day try to forcibly yank them back
into their orbit. So the Yugoslavs all saw the
Russians as the enemy they might well have
to fight one day.(SEE for example, Dusko
Doder, THE YUGOSLAVS, 1978). Having a
common enemy is a marvelous cement-
but once the Cold War ended, that glue was
no longer available. It's no coincidence I
think that when, IOTL, the Cold War ended
in 1989 just two years later Yugoslavia was
plunged into civil war.
 
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If the Cold War continued, the West might be more interested in supporting Yugoslavia as a country independent of the Soviet Union. This might well mean more lenient treatment from the IMF.

That said, the Yugoslavian economic model was failing long before the end of the Cold War, while internal rivalries were heating up at the same time. I can easily imagine a dysfunctional Yugoslavia becoming a Cold War hot spot, as the West and the Soviet bloc jockeyed for position. The destabilization of Yugoslavia was actually the proximate trigger for Hackett's Third World War.
 
IMO it would. The economy was deeply troubled and the way the Yugoslav state spread money around exacerbated national rivalries. Most of the republics felt they were losing by being part of Yugoslavia. The 1974 constitution meant that these economic problems added to the old national divides created government paralysis and that of course intensified the economic and national problems.

And if the PoD keeping the Cold War going doesn't remove Slobbo, IMO the breakup will be violent. That man was a real villain in my view (not to say that he was the worst villain or that all the villains were on the "Serbian" side - there were some exceedingly nasty characters among the Croatian nationalists, for example, but Slobbo's attempt to reform the system with opportunistic Serbian nationalism was like fixing a gasoline leak with a match).

That said, the Cold War continuing could throw off the timetable by several years.

If the Soviets seem to be doing OK economically, the collapse of Yugoslavia could boost Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, since they'd be able to point at the implosion and say "look, Titoism really doesn't work, take another look at our system". Also, depending on what the West does, the people in power in the satellite states could be frightened into closer cooperation with the Soviets.

And of course, the collapse of a Communist state could also weaken Soviet influence and depending on what the West does, the Soviets could be made to look militarily weak as well.

I suspect that either NATO or the WarPac intervening without the other would risk severe tensions, so we may see no intervention, as the people inside Yugoslavia are sacrificed for peace in the rest of Europe, a UN intervention with troops from neutral states or a joint NATO-WarPac intervention. Needless to say, NATO in this TL would be very different. The interventions in Yugoslavia were a big change in direction for the alliance.

fasquardon
 
If the Cold War continued, the West might be more interested in supporting Yugoslavia as a country independent of the Soviet Union. This might well mean more lenient treatment from the IMF.
IIRC whilst the Yugoslav economy was Communist-lite it was still too Communist for the taste of the US, Reagan decided on a new policy in the early 1990s that made it more difficult for them to access US and western loans.
 
If the Cold War continued, the West might be more interested in supporting Yugoslavia as a country independent of the Soviet Union. This might well mean more lenient treatment from the IMF.

That said, the Yugoslavian economic model was failing long before the end of the Cold War, while internal rivalries were heating up at the same time. I can easily imagine a dysfunctional Yugoslavia becoming a Cold War hot spot, as the West and the Soviet bloc jockeyed for position. The destabilization of Yugoslavia was actually the proximate trigger for Hackett's Third World War.

That's only relevent if the U.S assumes its more likely the Soviets will be able to suck Yugoslavia into its orbit intact, rather than being able to snatch Pro-Western states out of the rubble. I suppose that depends just on how stable the Warsaw Pact still is during this alt-Cold War period.
 
IIRC whilst the Yugoslav economy was Communist-lite it was still too Communist for the taste of the US, Reagan decided on a new policy in the early 1990s that made it more difficult for them to access US and western loans.
are you sure you don't mean H. W. Bush or Clinton? Reagan left office in '89
 
Yugoslavia was kept together after WWII by Tito. Unless you somehow make him immortal or live long enough to forge a true national identity (good luck, I wouldn't even know where to start), Yugoslavia is probably going to dissolve. The only question afterwards would be if it's peaceful or bloody.
 
IIRC whilst the Yugoslav economy was Communist-lite it was still too Communist for the taste of the US, Reagan decided on a new policy in the early 1990s that made it more difficult for them to access US and western loans.
Communist states were already unable to access US-backed loans due to the Volcker Act. The interest hikes made it impossible to borrow, since the lending institutions refused to grant them the funds, on account of not being able to repay them (they were barely able to repay them before the interest rate increase). It's the reason Romania defaulted twice in the '80s, due to already contracted loans whose interest rates doubled overnight.
 
Both USA and USSR were intrested in propping up Yugoslavia during the Cold War, but it's economy was in trouble for quite some time, combined with increasing nationalistic tensions, it was bound for breakup.
 
There was certainly the potential for economic shocks to lead to radical Cold War transformations in the 1980s. Had things gone differently in Poland, for instance, you might well have seen Communism end almost a decade earlier had different people made different decisions.
 
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