Yugoslavia loses Kosovo, Slovenia and Croatia but not BH and Macedonia

[Cook]

The only reason Kosovo exists as a seperate entity is NATO bombings, which occured only to the bad press the Serbs got in BBC and CNN during the civil war...

Well ethnic cleansing does so make for bad press.

Yugoslavia loses Kosovo, Slovenia and Croatia but not BH, Montenegro and Macedonia, is it possible? and what POD is required?

The problem with trying to hold together half of a multi-ethnic state after the other half has left is finding a reason for the other half to stay, especially when there is the opportunity to join a much larger multi-ethnic state (the EU) that can offer so much more than the old one could.

 

[el grapadura]

As Hrvatskiwiki said, Serbs giving up Kosovo is not going to happen.

As for dividing Bosnia ethnically (Serbia + Republika Srspka, Banovina Croatia and a Muslim rump state) it would have been managable if the international community tried to solve this mess in a pragmatic way instead of insisting on unnecessary melodrama.

Well, it's not as if the international community did not put forward peace plans that were based on ethnic divisions. But they were mostly rejected by at least one of the sides in the conflict, mainly because everyone believed that they could get more than what was being offered. Ethnically dividing BiH before the war was difficult because of the population structure at the time.

The world could also hold single individuals who commited warcrimes accountable for their deeds instead of whole ethnic groups so that the whole talk about the

moral injustice

towards ethnic group X is rendered moot.

But this is pretty much how it has worked out - it's not the international's community that perhaps 90% of the war crimes in this latest war was committed by members of one ethnic group.

EDIT: Keeping the Muslims in Yugoslavia might have been managable if Abdić was president of Bosnia.

Abdic did actually get the most votes in the election, so should have been the president but gave up the position to Alija. He was (guess still is) the ultimate pragmatist, so he may well have tried something along the lines you've suggested.

An interesting situation happened in early May 1992 - Abdic mysteriously appeared in Sarajevo just as JNA launched an attack on the Presidency building in Sarajevo and other vital objects in the city (Post office, main communications,etc), and it is very possible that they may have tried to install him as the new president (this is the same day that Alija was arrested at the Sarajevo airport by JNA). Obviously this didn't work and Abdic ended up going back to Kladusa, but if it had the history of ex-Yugoslavia from 1992 onwards could have been quite different.

 

[Angel Heart]

Well, it's not as if the international community did not put forward peace plans that were based on ethnic divisions. But they were mostly rejected by at least one of the sides in the conflict, mainly because everyone believed that they could get more than what was being offered. Ethnically dividing BiH before the war was difficult because of the population structure at the time.

I was thinking more after the war.

But this is pretty much how it has worked out - it's not the international's community that perhaps 90% of the war crimes in this latest war was committed by members of one ethnic group.

No offence but while Serbs did commit most of the crimes in Bosnia I find the number 90% to be a gross exaggeration.
But that's not what I meant. I remember reading an interview of Valentin Inzko (IIRC) of the OHR who mentioned that an independent Republika Srpska would be "morally wrong", a "post-mortal victory of Milošević" and some other inane nonsense. Of course all this pseudo morality and other myths are just empty phrases serving as an excuse as I have yet to see a foreign policy openly admitting it's double standards.
My point is: When you solve this mess in a pragmatic way that both ensures a long term peace and keeps human fatalities at the most posible minimum, putting people like Karadžić and Mladić on trail should be more than enough instead of demonizing an entire people and making things more complicated elsewhere.

Abdic did actually get the most votes in the election, so should have been the president but gave up the position to Alija. He was (guess still is) the ultimate pragmatist, so he may well have tried something along the lines you've suggested.

An interesting situation happened in early May 1992 - Abdic mysteriously appeared in Sarajevo just as JNA launched an attack on the Presidency building in Sarajevo and other vital objects in the city (Post office, main communications,etc), and it is very possible that they may have tried to install him as the new president (this is the same day that Alija was arrested at the Sarajevo airport by JNA). Obviously this didn't work and Abdic ended up going back to Kladusa, but if it had the history of ex-Yugoslavia from 1992 onwards could have been quite different.

Babo was far from being a decent human being but his pragmatism made him a lesser evil towards Alija.

 

[el grapadura]

But the problem is that a pragmatic solution you mention was simply never close enough to being agreed upon by the three sides in the conflict - and if you can't come close to such an agreement, then you can't have a pragmatic solution. Obviously Dayton was far from ideal, and it basically only served to stop the war without necessarily providing a political platform that could satisfy everyone, which is why BiH is such a mess right now. And even then it is questionable whether it would have been agreed on without the Americans and basically saying you agree now or else.

As for your other point - the Serb actions from November 1991 to August 1992 (Vukovar, Dubrovnik, eastern Bosnia, camps in Bosnian Krajina) really swayed the international opinion against them, and essentially put an asterisk next to RS for the foreseeable future (of course, Muslims milked this for all its worth). Indeed, the biggest failure of Serb leadership in the 1990s was not realising that you simply couldn't do things in the 1992 they way you did in 1912 or 1942. People saw this kind of stuff on their TVs while having dinner - and once you create such an image for yourself, it's hard to get rid of it. And this has obvious consequences for the RS of today.

 

[Angel Heart]

Now that I finally got some sleep.

But the problem is that a pragmatic solution you mention was simply never close enough to being agreed upon by the three sides in the conflict - and if you can't come close to such an agreement, then you can't have a pragmatic solution. Obviously Dayton was far from ideal, and it basically only served to stop the war without necessarily providing a political platform that could satisfy everyone, which is why BiH is such a mess right now. And even then it is questionable whether it would have been agreed on without the Americans and basically saying you agree now or else.

I'm aware that Dayton was meant as an ad hoc solution, the problem is that this should have been developed further from the day the war officially ended. The problem is as follows: If you grant Kosovo independence, no problem. But you can't deny the Republika Srpska her independence if she ever proclaims it. This double standard and shortsightedness is just asking for trouble in the future. So you either keep as much of Yugoslavia together as possible or you draw the borders according to ethnic lines.

As for your other point - the Serb actions from November 1991 to August 1992 (Vukovar, Dubrovnik, eastern Bosnia, camps in Bosnian Krajina) really swayed the international opinion against them, and essentially put an asterisk next to RS for the foreseeable future (of course, Muslims milked this for all its worth). Indeed, the biggest failure of Serb leadership in the 1990s was not realising that you simply couldn't do things in the 1992 they way you did in 1912 or 1942. People saw this kind of stuff on their TVs while having dinner - and once you create such an image for yourself, it's hard to get rid of it. And this has obvious consequences for the RS of today.

I think while true it is just a matter of how much you are able to spin this into your own favor. Much may have been gone different if the Serbs had a better PR department instead of embarrasing stories like one with the "children being trown to the lions". If you are able to control the media effectively and have a credible propaganda combined with a successful spin, you can get away with virtually everything.

 

[el grapadura]

Don't really disagree with that. Just the point about the media war/propaganda side of things: from my recollection of that time, the Serbian propaganda machine during the wars was almost exclusively aimed internally, rather than also externally. And of course, once the images I mentioned came out, instead of modifying behaviour to create a more benevolent image of themselves in front of the international audience, they continued making mistakes - taking UN hostages, and obviously Srebrenica later on. Like I said, with these kind of things coming out into the world, the international community could hardly ignore them.

But yes, I agree that the RS/Kosovo situation is schizophrenic to say the least.