Plausibility Check: Earlier Yugoslav Wars resulting in WW3

[Questerr]

Hi all,

I've been rolling around an idea for a mid-80's Cold War gone hot timeline with the POD being an earlier collapse of Yugoslavia into civil war. In essence, a terrorist event at the Sarajevo Olympics results in an earlier breakaway of Croatia and Slovenia and a crackdown by the Serbian-dominated YPA. The Soviets support the Serbs, while NATO supports the breakaway republics. Once NATO forces and Warsaw Pact forces meet in conflict, the war widens into a larger (mostly) conventional WW3.

Now, ignoring the general implausibility of a conventional WW3, is this POD at all plausible? Were the various ethnic factions in Yugoslavia sufficiently divided by '84/'85 to result in this conflict? Is the intervention of the USSR and later NATO a realistic idea?

 

[Bob in Pittsburgh]

Ethnic hostility has existed in the Balkans for 500 years so your scenario is very plausible. The only caution I would add is that even the nuts in North Korea were peaceful during the 1988 Olympics. You allude to the real plausibility question; the willingness of NATO and Moscow to escalate to another general war. Just the similarity to Sarajevo would cause some to hesitate. At the time I viewed as a war monger eager to bring his Hollywood backlot war experiences to prime time. Looking to his advisers I think George Schultz would have been against war. I am not sure about Weinberger or General Vessey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think Gorby had enough problems and would have done a lot to avoid war.

 

[Questerr]

Ethnic hostility has existed in the Balkans for 500 years so your scenario is very plausible. The only caution I would add is that even the nuts in North Korea were peaceful during the 1988 Olympics. You allude to the real plausibility question; the willingness of NATO and Moscow to escalate to another general war. Just the similarity to Sarajevo would cause some to hesitate. At the time I viewed as a war monger eager to bring his Hollywood backlot war experiences to prime time. Looking to his advisers I think George Schultz would have been against war. I am not sure about Weinberger or General Vessey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think Gorby had enough problems and would have done a lot to avoid war.

I see the Franz Ferdinand parrallels, but to get a little closer to specifics, this isn't really a "Guns of August" scenario. The initial Yugoslavian violence would kick off with the catalyst around the Olympics, but the escalation of ethnic violence would occur over months (my initial idea is that it ramps over most of 1984, with the larger conflict kicking off in the winter of 84/85).

My idea for NATO getting involved is to have the Serbs with WP advisors engage in a large massacre of civilians in western Croatia with the implication that they are moving on Slovenia next for a repeat, which prompts the NATO Southern ACE force for move into the area.

 

[Byzantion]

Hi all,

I've been rolling around an idea for a mid-80's Cold War gone hot timeline with the POD being an earlier collapse of Yugoslavia into civil war. In essence, a terrorist event at the Sarajevo Olympics results in an earlier breakaway of Croatia and Slovenia and a crackdown by the Serbian-dominated YPA. The Soviets support the Serbs, while NATO supports the breakaway republics. Once NATO forces and Warsaw Pact forces meet in conflict, the war widens into a larger (mostly) conventional WW3.

Now, ignoring the general implausibility of a conventional WW3, is this POD at all plausible? Were the various ethnic factions in Yugoslavia sufficiently divided by '84/'85 to result in this conflict? Is the intervention of the USSR and later NATO a realistic idea?

This atrtack might be ochrestated by Croatian Nationalist terrorists who had been very active during the Cold War OTL. The question is if in 1984/85 the Central government/Communist Party and Yugoslav People's army's cause are the main actors or the Ultranationalist Greater Serbia Serbs. The Sovuets might be flexible ideologically even three decades after the Tito-Stalin split.

 

[Questerr]

This atrtack might be ochrestated by Croatian Nationalist terrorists who had been very active during the Cold War OTL. The question is if in 1984/85 the Central government/Communist Party and Yugoslav People's army's cause are the main actors or the Ultranationalist Greater Serbia Serbs. The Sovuets might be flexible ideologically even three decades after the Tito-Stalin split.

My idea is for it to be Serbian nationalists, but even well into the mid-to-late 90's they considered themselves the Yugoslav government.

 

[Bob in Pittsburgh]

My idea for NATO getting involved is to have the Serbs with WP advisors engage in a large massacre of civilians in western Croatia with the implication that they are moving on Slovenia next for a repeat, which prompts the NATO Southern ACE force for move into the area.

I see that as a more realistic scenario but even a superficial Franz Ferdinand parallel would I think cause some people to at least pause. World War II British reluctance to commit to Overload was often ascribed to memories of the Somme. I think that was true in 1943 and that some it would still be applicable in Britain and France. I also wonder if the altruistic intervention would have occurred if NATO were facing the Warsaw Pact instead of Yugoslav army. Even in 1999 there was a clear decision not to put boots on the ground so there was a limit to the NATO commitment to save the refugees. Thinking about world leaders in the mid eighties Thatcher was more than willing to go to war over the Falkland; Mitterrand had a somewhat checkered past with a Vichy period; Kohl was more domestic oriented already seeing the unification possibility.