Republika Srpska in Yugoslavia?

What would have (most likely) become of the Republika Srpska?


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Here has been a nagging question I have had for a while now. I have a timeline in which the Bosnian War goes in a different direction, with the Karadordevo and Graz agreements are successful. The war would end with the Republika Srpska being merged into Yugoslavia.

My dilemma is that Srpska (and Yugoslavia/Serbia) isn't too clear on their overall intentions. Did they want to become a republic of Yugoslavia, or be completely merged into Serbia (then, a republic of Yugoslavia). I hope some cross-talking can help me understand more.
 
Actually, that's an excellent question. I have no idea.

It is likely that they would like to join as a republic if Montenegro is still within Yugoslavia.
 
Given that this occurs before the ethnic conflicts and so forth, I can imagine that the region is raised to a third republic (Serbia, Montenegro, Serbian Bosnia) as a small nod to the idea that the still quite large ethnic minorities need to be handled carefully and by a different government to the main Serbian state.
 
Given that this occurs before the ethnic conflicts and so forth, I can imagine that the region is raised to a third republic (Serbia, Montenegro, Serbian Bosnia) as a small nod to the idea that the still quite large ethnic minorities need to be handled carefully and by a different government to the main Serbian state.

Well actually, the events and migrations from OTL happen. By today (as OTL), Srpska is mostly Serb populated. The remaining half of BiH (as part of my timeline) will be divided between Croatia and a Bosnian Federation made up of two enclaves. Srpska wouldn't be annexed until (as early as) 1994. I don't want to go into detail about the specifics (because I fear it will turn into a conversation about everything but what has been mentioned).
 
Well actually, the events and migrations from OTL happen. By today (as OTL), Srpska is mostly Serb populated. The remaining half of BiH (as part of my timeline) will be divided between Croatia and a Bosnian Federation made up of two enclaves. Srpska wouldn't be annexed until (as early as) 1994. I don't want to go into detail about the specifics (because I fear it will turn into a conversation about everything but what has been mentioned).

Ah, as this is the case, I think it more likely therefore that it becomes an autonomous Province of Serbia, just because I doubt that Kardivic is going to want to give up too much power.
 
My dilemma is that Srpska (and Yugoslavia/Serbia) isn't too clear on their overall intentions. Did they want to become a republic of Yugoslavia, or be completely merged into Serbia (then, a republic of Yugoslavia). I hope some cross-talking can help me understand more.

At its declaration, Republika Srpska was declared to be part of the Federal State of Yugoslavia.

According to this ICTY document, Radovan Karadzic announced six 'strategic objectives' for the Bosnians Serbs:

1) Establish State borders separating the Serbian community from the other two.
2) Set up a corridor between Semberija [the bit of Bosnia which Serbs inhabit that borders Serbia] and Krajina [not the Croatian region of Krajina, but the Bosnian one which borders Croatia]
3) Establish a corridor in the Drina river valley, eliminating the Drina as a border between the two Serb states [I'm not entirely sure what's meant by this]
4) Establish a border on the Una and Neretva Rivers [Not sure who the border was between, presumably Serb land and a rump Bosnia. Having the Neretva as the border would have given Bosnia's tiny coast to the Serb state, see point 6]
5) Divide Sarajevo between Serbs and Bosniaks.
 
I think that "Part of FRY" is the maximum international community could allow. Any closer integration with Serbia would be show stopper for the West.

If I understood OP correctly peace is reached in '92? That still leaves the problem of war in Croatia (borders/front lines were mostly stable from '92 to end in '95). In theory you could imagine a nearly ASB (West and that also means Croatia and Bosnia knew that they could defeat Serbs in the end and so had no need to give them anything) "trade" agreement where Republika Srpska Kraina is to become a (very) autonomous part of Croatia, Republika Srpska becoming a fully independent (of Bosnia) or even loose member of FRY.

But that leaves Bosnian Muslims screwed. Tudjman and Milosevic could reach a deal for Bosnia where its either fully split between the two or a microscopic Bosnian Bosnia is allowed to exist; but Izetbegovic would never accept that.

And Izetbegovic has all the might of petrodollar lobby groups working for him. As long as Bush and Clinton admins are buddy buddy with Saudis, demands of Bosnian Muslims will be taken into account at high priority.

For example. It was Isetbegovic who refused the Cutiliero-Owen treaty that was supposed to partition Bosnia before the war there even started

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_...d_during_the_Bosnian_War#Carrington-Cutileiro

Irregardless of silly and opaque denials in that article it is no secret that US ambassador did provide Izetbegovic with guarantees that they will have US backing if he chooses to decline the plan and eventually starts a civil war.


And solving situation in Croatia is also near impossible. Peacekeepers were in in '92 and situation was mostly stable until Croatian operations "Flash" and "Storm"; destroying RSK, openly and willingly committing ethnic cleansing and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Though it was this; in combination with full unwillingness of Milosevic and Belgrade to help save RSK; and Milosevic also pressuring Bosnian Serbs since late '93 that can be safely said finally convinced Karadzic and Mladic to accept Dayton agreement.





Wars are very nasty things, and once started difficult to stop. With media pictured by Western media being so black and white; it would be difficult for West to agree on anything that could look like beneficial for the bad guys (Serbs). Safest bet for ATL is to prevent war completely. Maybe allow initial firefights in Slovenia and then have West decide that preventing a lengthy civil war in Europe is higher priority than placating their friends in Zagreb and Sarajevo and have them force a peaceful division of Yugoslavia upon all sides.

Though you could maybe have a scenario where war is started by ends faster if you have Yeltsin fall in late '92 or early '93 and someone competent and hardline take his palce ?(parliament/constitution crisis? maybe have army shoot at Kremlin instead of the White Building. But that throws global politics of '90es completely out of OTL track)
 
I was hoping we could stay on topic, but the POD to my timeline is the August Coup fails to happen. Gorbachev remains in power, the New Union Treaty is signed, and the USSR is transformed into a democratic union of sovereign states. I will leave a link to my timeline, but let's stay on the topic at hand.

http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/New_Union

Again, this is not a question of how or why, but a question of what.

Since it seems to keep moving towards it becoming a republic, here is another question to the mix. Do you think they would really keep the name "Srpska"? Basically, the name means "Serb" or "Serbia." Their flag is also a variant of the flag of Serbia. To me, this just makes the case that they wanted a full merger with Serbia. This seems more likely when they mention one of their goals as "eliminate the Drina River as a border," which sounds like (hypothetically) if Mexico were to say they wanted to eliminate the Rio Grande as a border (meaning annexation into the US).
 
If Yugoslavia remains whole, would there even be a need for entities such as Republic of Srpska?
 

abc123

Banned
Here has been a nagging question I have had for a while now. I have a timeline in which the Bosnian War goes in a different direction, with the Karadordevo and Graz agreements are successful. The war would end with the Republika Srpska being merged into Yugoslavia.

My dilemma is that Srpska (and Yugoslavia/Serbia) isn't too clear on their overall intentions. Did they want to become a republic of Yugoslavia, or be completely merged into Serbia (then, a republic of Yugoslavia). I hope some cross-talking can help me understand more.

I voted for first option, because such action would better fit into story that Serbs were telling around that they wan't to stay in Yugoslavia.
 
Since it seems to keep moving towards it becoming a republic, here is another question to the mix. Do you think they would really keep the name "Srpska"? Basically, the name means "Serb" or "Serbia." Their flag is also a variant of the flag of Serbia. To me, this just makes the case that they wanted a full merger with Serbia. This seems more likely when they mention one of their goals as "eliminate the Drina River as a border," which sounds like (hypothetically) if Mexico were to say they wanted to eliminate the Rio Grande as a border (meaning annexation into the US).

The only question is whether Karadzic (ironically not actually a Bosnian Serb) would want to give up having his own little country. Perhaps if not being made a full federal member like Montenegro was (seeing as it's not different enough), it could be an autonomous province with a similar status to Kosovo or Vojvodina, either on 1974-1990 terms, or the pre-1974 conception of the provinces. With the flag, I don't think they'll change it - at the time Montenegro had a near-identical flag (with different dimensions and a slightly lighter shade of blue), and they didn't have another symbol, unless I suppose they used the Austro-Hungarian flag of Bosnia (red over yellow), the colours of which were taken from the coat of arms of a 14th century Bosnian (and therefore pre-Ottoman, and so Christian Orthodox, i.e. Serbian) noble, Stjepan Vukcic Kosaca. For the name, if they didn't want to call themselves Republika Srpska, which admittedly wouldn't make sense within Serbia, something like Bosna Srpska [i Hercegovine] or something more like Pridrina/Nadrina//Izvandrina/Transdrina - whatever the Serbian for beyond or on the Drina would be, like a Serbian Transdniester/Pridnestrovie type name.
 
Yugoslavia?

I think the only way for Republika Srpska to have become a part of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was if the international community had agreed to a division of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia. In this case rump Yugoslavia would have consisted of

1. Serbia Proper
2. Vojvodina
3. Kosovo
4. Metohija
5. Republika Srpska

Each of these (exluding Serbia Proper) would be considered autonomous provinces within Yugoslavia

I also feel in this case there would have been no need to call the country Yugoslavia. I think Serbia could have become acceptable.
 
Well, I am not sure they (meaning International Community) would accept that...

The de iure difference between Yugoslavia and (Greater) Serbia is somewhat important to the rest of the (interested) world.

No idea why. :D
 

Angel Heart

Banned
If for which magical reasons ever the Srpska would have been annext by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, than she would have been merged with Serbia as the Srpska was predominately ethnic Serb. The point of the autonomous provinces were the ethnic minorities (Montenegris, Albanians, Hungarians and others) which the Srpska had not (any more). I picked autonomy by accident.
Also, dividing Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia might also have happened if Tuđman and Milošević had some doomsday devices to blackmail the entire world into submission.

The problem is that the international community always for some reason treated the AVNOJ borders of the Yugoslav republics and the Autonomous Provinces as if they were drawn by God himself. Changing the borders according to the ethnic distribution, which would have spared the locals a lot of grief and tragedies, has always been regarded as outright heretical (just look at the current Kosovo crisis). In other words: Merging the Republika Srpska with Serbia would have been political adventurism of an epic scale, something both Karadžić and Milošević were perfectly aware of (in fact it was only the leadership of the Krajna Serbs who was delusional).
 
If for which magical reasons ever the Srpska would have been annext by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, than she would have been merged with Serbia as the Srpska was predominately ethnic Serb. The point of the autonomous provinces were the ethnic minorities (Montenegris, Albanians, Hungarians and others) which the Srpska had not (any more). I picked autonomy by accident.
Also, dividing Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia might also have happened if Tuđman and Milošević had some doomsday devices to blackmail the entire world into submission.

The problem is that the international community always for some reason treated the AVNOJ borders of the Yugoslav republics and the Autonomous Provinces as if they were drawn by God himself. Changing the borders according to the ethnic distribution, which would have spared the locals a lot of grief and tragedies, has always been regarded as outright heretical (just look at the current Kosovo crisis). In other words: Merging the Republika Srpska with Serbia would have been political adventurism of an epic scale, something both Karadžić and Milošević were perfectly aware of (in fact it was only the leadership of the Krajna Serbs who was delusional).

The magic might be the Croats and Serbs cutting an early deal and going through with it. Serb ambitions in Croatia proper make it really hard.
If Bosnian Croats accordingly vote against the independence of BiH than the majority of the Bosnian population votes against independence. Another referendum calling for the dissolution and partition of the republic will only be boycotted by the Muslims.

EDIT: I voted for autonomy, assuming the large Muslim minority isn't cleansed.
 

Angel Heart

Banned
The magic might be the Croats and Serbs cutting an early deal and going through with it. Serb ambitions in Croatia proper make it really hard.
If Bosnian Croats accordingly vote against the independence of BiH than the majority of the Bosnian population votes against independence. Another referendum calling for the dissolution and partition of the republic will only be boycotted by the Muslims.

EDIT: I voted for autonomy, assuming the large Muslim minority isn't cleansed.

Sounds interesting but the problem was that the Croats in general wanted to leave Yugoslavia. The only option which would have satisfied both Serbs and Croats was seperating the Republika Srpska and the Herceg-Bosna from BiH, but as you know for the International Community changing the borders of Bosnia was heresy.
nono.gif


EDIT: RE: Autonomy. Maybe but maybe not. The eastern half of the Sandžak region has a significant Muslim population and yet no autonomy or whatsoever.
 
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Sounds interesting but the problem was that the Croats in general wanted to leave Yugoslavia.
The thing I was going for was "Sure, Croats, you can leave YU and if you help us out blocking BiH's independence we'll even let you leave with pieces of it".
A sweet sweet deal for the Serbs... in hindsight.

The only option which would have satisfied both Serbs and Croats was seperating the Republika Srpska and the Herceg-Bosna from BiH, but as you know for the International Community changing the borders of Bosnia was heresy.
nono.gif
Very inflexible indeed, perhaps out of fear of opening Pandora boxes everywhere. And since the majority of the people in BiH voted for independence they felt compelled to keep this entity's territorial integrity.
Now, if the majority actually vote for the dissolution of the (Socialist) Republic of BiH perhaps the International Community wouldn't be so unanimous in this.
 
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