I am wondering when was the right time and what should have been done, (probably in the 1980s), in order to prevent civil war, nationalism and violent break up of country 10 years later? What would that scenario look like? How would that reflect on today's world?
Yugoslavia would need a stronger apparatus than Tito for holding it together. While he was alive, any hints of nationalism were ruthlessly crushed. Yugoslavia would need a strong organization like the NKVD or Gestapo to keep the Serbs, Croats and others from killing each other. Too much bad blood in that part of the world to do otherwise.
Perhaps if the cold war continued longer? I seem to recall that most of the constituants of Yugoslavia were fairly united by their fear of the ussr. So keep an external enemy and prevent eyes turning inward?
Relationships with USSR in Gorbačëv era were quite good, moreover people had already started to lost confidence in claims made by the Party about external enemies attempting to the Federation; the only ones believing into this were parts of the ruling elites, some out of looking for a scapegoat others out of suggestions made by KGB or other agencies.
Going off what the above 2 said, maybe an actual war to unite the country? Like Hoxha losing his mind completely and invading Kosovo as a prerequisite to establishing Greater Albania anywhere in the 70's to mid 80's? Or even a Soviet invasion after the Tito-Stalin Split, that could have titanic butterflies.
If they actually were invaded then the claims might carry more weight. Even if they had to pull a gulf of Tonkin.
Probably not. Or at least it's very difficult. Yugoslavia was a one man state, held together by Tito. When he died.....
There's even a proverb, in a couple of forms, that counts down 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 with nationalities, republics, languages, ending 3 religions, 2 scripts, and one Tito.
When he died, the Serbs, the largest and most powerful grouping, wanted to rule Yugoslavia as Greater Serbia, and pretty much only the zmontenegrans were OK with that.
How you keep the Serbs from pushing that, I dont know, but that's likely your best bet.
link for proverb?
"I am the leader of one country which has two alphabets, three languages, four religions, five nationalities, six republics, surrounded by seven neighbours, a country in which live eight ethnic minorities."
—Josip Broz Tito
I am going to sig this if I can