Modern Balkan War

What do you think what would modern day balkan war look like, and I mean all of Balkans, who would be on whose side? (turkey is also in it)
 

MSZ

Banned
Serbia vs. Kosovo once 1)the US Army leaves 2) Albania pulls of an Anschluss. Kosovo gets steamrolled, the US, EU and Turkey protest, but nothing happens. Serbia does not join the EU for the next 20 years.

That's the 'realistic' future history scenario. Alternately you could have the Srbska Kraina seceding from Bosnia, Serbia interfering on behalf of the Serbs, or the muslim Macedonians trying to pull off another Kosovo-like scenario. So the worst case scenario would be a Serbia+Macedonia+Srbska Kraina vs. Bosnia+Albania+Kosovo.

If you would want to escalate that even further, you could have some kind uber-nationalist regime in Croatia backing Bosnia against Serbia for the "we will be next if we don't act now" reason, Hungary doing the same in Vojvodina in case an Arkan-like character tries to pull off an Oluja there, Greece backing the Serbs against the Albanians for the fear of their own albanian-inhabited territory, an islamist turkish government backing the Muslims in the region - the last escalating into a Greeko-Turkish war in the Aegean Sea.

Montenegro might get involved somehow if it gets unlucky.
 
Good scenario :)
So Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Turkey on one side
Serbia, grece on the other
Croatia and Hungary, neutral towards Muslims but warry of Serbs?
what about Bulgariam Romania? Who would they join?

What effects in the world would it cause, and who would win/prevail in the end, and what would winners demand (if anything)
 

GarethC

Donor
Good scenario :)
So Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Turkey on one side
Serbia, grece on the other
Croatia and Hungary, neutral towards Muslims but warry of Serbs?
what about Bulgariam Romania? Who would they join?

Popular though it might be, Greece won't be doing anything military until their finances improve.

Turkey is unlikely to do anything rash within Europe until things settle with Syria and the Kurds.

I was under a vague impression that Romania lacked force-projection capability - Ceaucescu wanted big stage shows, not motor-rifle divisions, and post-1990 governments have not tried to build up the military.
What effects in the world would it cause, and who would win/prevail in the end, and what would winners demand (if anything)

NATO picks whoever's winning and bombs the spit out of them, while getting UN occupation troops - probably Bangladeshi or somebody Muslim but inoffensive in Bosnia, maybe, um, Baltic States or Poland? in Serbia - to keep the peace afterwards, but not to intervene while there is ground combat going on.

Otto von Bismarck said:
The Balkans are not worth the bones of one single Pomeranian grenadier.
There won't be a real effect in the world - nobody is dumb enough to end up like the Dutch at Srebrenice again. Where there is a peacekeeping presence it will involve RoE that allow for preemptive engagement with the employ of armor, artillery, and air support.

Afterwards, a minor Western politician with a military background (e.g. like Paddy Ashdown) will be made the administrator of the conflict zone for a while - maybe a Canadian or Belgian? - while the UN throws some money at rebuilding the infrastructure. Large US construction firms like Halliburton, Bechtel and Amec will rack up enormous profits on the work.

I suppose if Turkey does get involved it then other European countries will join France in never ever letting it into the EU, and Greece or Hungary might try to use intervention as an excuse to default on their sovereign debt, but that was going to happen anyway, really. If there are significant civilian casualties then maybe whoever is EU foreign minister (is it still Baroness Ashton?) will resign.
 
I wonder if any seccessions/territorial losses/gain would happen from a war like this, it usually does.
 
Me too, after all its balkans.
I see a blody mess, with things like in 90´s hapening (mass murder, deportations, rape and etc...)
Also I see land taken, after all the politicians would need something to show for.
I wonder who would start it
 
You guys do know that Croatia and Albania are NATO members?


At this stage a conventional war between armies is nigh immposible to wage as all the armed forces in the region are either to run down or their equipment is not working (including Croatia's, just yesterday it was reported that only 24% of our tank force is operational). What you would have is large forces of well armed militias duking it out for the first few months until the armies get new equipment. The conflict would be resemble more some Equatorial African civil war that the conflict of the '90.
 

MSZ

Banned
You guys do know that Croatia and Albania are NATO members?

You mean like Turkey and Greece? That certainly stoped them from waging war. And when the USA invoked article 5, again, all NATO states anwsered the call. :rolleyes:

Sure we know they are, but doesn't change squat. I seriously doubt the Bundeswehr would be rolling into Belgrade if after annexing Kosovo Tirana gets bombed with Serbian MiGs, or if Sarajevo got shelled after Serbia stepped into Srbska Kraina after a few anti-Serb pogroms.

At this stage a conventional war between armies is nigh immposible to wage as all the armed forces in the region are either to run down or their equipment is not working (including Croatia's, just yesterday it was reported that only 24% of our tank force is operational). What you would have is large forces of well armed militias duking it out for the first few months until the armies get new equipment. The conflict would be resemble more some Equatorial African civil war that the conflict of the '90.

Which is another reason why a Balkan war can occur - its relative low-levelness making it an 'internal matter' for most of the world. If Croatia's military is in serious disrepair, they wouldn't take part in any large operations in Bosnia, giving Serbia greater incentive to take action - 'the Croats don't have stuff to use against us, etc. etc.'

Not saying such a war will happen toworrow or next year. But in 10? 20? Lots of stuff can happen, such as Serbia joining NATO and the EU while Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo don't, annulling any threat those organizations pose.
 
You mean like Turkey and Greece? That certainly stoped them from waging war. And when the USA invoked article 5, again, all NATO states anwsered the call. :rolleyes:

Sure we know they are, but doesn't change squat. I seriously doubt the Bundeswehr would be rolling into Belgrade if after annexing Kosovo Tirana gets bombed with Serbian MiGs, or if Sarajevo got shelled after Serbia stepped into Srbska Kraina after a few anti-Serb pogroms.

I think you are mixing regions up. Republika Srpska (Serbian Republic) is in BiH and its western part is in the region called Bosanska Krajina (Bosnian Kraina). Republika Srpska Krajina (Serbian Kraina Republic) was in Croatia and most of it was in regions called Dalmatinska Zagora (Dalmatian hinterlands), Lika, Kordun, Banovina and Western Slavonia.

Pogroms in BiH are nigh impossible due to the fact that since the last war ended people live in ethnicly very "pure" regions, the proper term would probably be that most of BiH after the war is predominatly monoethnic. Serbs are now way to homogenic teritorialy to suffer pogroms. Croats and Bosnians have areas were pogroms can happen.


Which is another reason why a Balkan war can occur - its relative low-levelness making it an 'internal matter' for most of the world. If Croatia's military is in serious disrepair, they wouldn't take part in any large operations in Bosnia, giving Serbia greater incentive to take action - 'the Croats don't have stuff to use against us, etc. etc.'

Not saying such a war will happen toworrow or next year. But in 10? 20? Lots of stuff can happen, such as Serbia joining NATO and the EU while Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo don't, annulling any threat those organizations pose.

The thing is all sides are such disrepair (Croatia the least of them) that operations outside defensive are logisticaly almost impossible.

Another problem is that people outside balkans need to stop looking at people living here and our states so black and white. A lot would need to change in the future to have a modern balkan war resembling those in 1912/13 when all sides went allout.

Just an example during the wars of the '90 it wasn't the Serbs from Serbia fighting (mostly) but those living in Croatia and BiH. One of the reasons why Serbian/Yugoslav attack failed was because the draft in Serbia failed, it was bellow 10% and during the war nearly 400 000 Serbs emigrated from Serbia because they did not support the actions of their leaders. The Serbs in Croatia are a spent force, in the areas where they form the mayority it is a middle of nowhere with little infastucture and their population is mostly elderly. Young Croatian Serbs live in mayor cities like Zagreb, Rijeka or Osijek and are a small minority. In BiH the Serb population is stil vital but without outside support their resources outside manpower are severly limited and Serba is decades away from actually being able to support them in a meaningful way.

Any modern balkan war is decades away because no country or people are capable of going to war both economicaly and logisticaly.



Podveleska Utoka @ Zagreb
 

Angel Heart

Banned
(...)Hungary doing the same in Vojvodina in case an Arkan-like character tries to pull off an Oluja there(...)

What does everyone have against the Vojvodina Hungarians? :confused: The Hungarians never caused any trouble and were IIRC a pretty loyal minority.

As for Kosovo I can't see Serbia doing a Biljesak/Oluja style move unless Belgrade is greenlighted to do so by major powers. I don't see why the US would abandon Kosovo as they put so much effort and money in pressing other countries to recognize its independence.

Also, wouldn't NATO suspend a member who commits an open aggression on a fellow NATO member state (for example the Greece VS Turkey scenario)?
 
What does everyone have against the Vojvodina Hungarians? :confused: The Hungarians never caused any trouble and were IIRC a pretty loyal minority.

I heard of a few instances where the serbs sent the hungarian recruts with emty guns to the front but on the large scale you are right nothing serios dicrimination or pogrom hapened in Ujvidek. But i could swear to you that is just because Serbia had a border to Hungary witch made clear that if persecution happened to the hungarian minority then there will be war. The Romanians did the same. The Serbs couldnt afford this.
 

Angel Heart

Banned
I heard of a few instances where the serbs sent the hungarian recruts with emty guns to the front but on the large scale you are right nothing serios dicrimination or pogrom hapened in Ujvidek. But i could swear to you that is just because Serbia had a border to Hungary witch made clear that if persecution happened to the hungarian minority then there will be war. The Romanians did the same. The Serbs couldnt afford this.

I honestly don't see a reason why Serbia (even without this threat) would do something against the Hungarian and Romanian minorities as the Serbs at this time had only hostilities with the Croats (and later with the Bosnian Muslims and Albanians). As I mentioned, they posed no threat nor did they otherwise contradict Serbia's interets so any hostility towards them would be pointless and a violation of common sense.
IIRC the commander of the battalion who shot down the F-117 was a Hungarian. Though I'm not 100% sure.
 
Honestly, after all that has happened I don't see the Serbians doing anything that might make them look like the bad guys again. They have too much to lose and too microscopically little to win - if you ignore that they don't have a way to do it once the IC decides to come down and spank them again anyway. I have this feeling that if something were to happen again in the Balkans it would actually start within Macedonia.
 
Top