Ten years have passed since the bloody carnage began in Bosnia, initiated by Serbian nationalist forces led by Slobodan Milosevic. To be sure, the Serbs were not alone. Croatia’s separatists, led by an equally authoritarian former communist general, Franjo Tudjman, …
Policy makers in Washington need good news in the Balkans, but have never been willing to lay out the resources necessary to make things turn out well. Instead, they have searched for good guys, effective leaders who might bring good …
Democracy has been given a second chance in Croatia with a dramatic breakthrough by democratic parties in parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year. The national-chauvinist HDZ (Croatian Democratic Community) founded by Franjo Tudjman, which has ruled Croatia with an …
I have suffered much anguish over NATO’s war in Yugoslavia. Unlike almost every U.S. military intervention of the past half century, this is a just war—but badly and irresponsibly led. It was cowardly of the White House to decide on …
Kosovo is where the final disintegration of Yugoslavia began. It is there that the Titoist settlement of the national question in Yugoslavia broke down irreparably in 1990. The immediate issue was the decision of Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, …
The Dayton accords are in trouble. Their only virtue—it is not a small one—is that they stopped the organized fighting in the former Yugoslavia. But they also partitioned Bosnia and left the consequences of “ethnic cleansing” intact. The major war …
This is a courageous and painfully honest book that must have been very hard to write. Although it is very well written, it will earn David Rieff few friends. It is extraordinarily difficult to write serious reportage about Bosnia-Herzegovina while …
The European Community (EC), the United States, and the United Nations have all contributed mightily to the death of Yugoslavia and the murder of Bosnia. German and Austrian overeagerness to recognize unilateral declarations of secession by Slovenia and Croatia assured …
This White House seems to have no foreign policy vision and no interest in developing one. This is a bad political mistake—even for an administration that would prefer to focus “like a laser beam” on domestic problems. It is the …
Tom Nairn’s provocative article (Fall 1993, “All Bosnians Now?”) deserves a fuller reply than I can provide in a brief rejoinder. Nevertheless, a few notes might be appropriate. Nairn is right. “Balkanites” are irritated when the historical divide between Byzantium …
Books about the breakup of Yugoslavia and the genocidal war against the Moslem Slays of Bosnia have become a minor industry. As expected, journalists are at the forefront and social scientists and historians lag far behind. More often than not, …
Genocides are inconvenient for preoccupied statesmen, who have worries of their own. They happen at the wrong places and the wrong times. Those who argue that the destruction of Bosnia cannot be called an act of genocide ignore the fact …
The great danger for the foreign and defense policies of the new Clinton administration lies in the “new” folks’ widespread temptation to try to act statesmanlike by producing a high degree of bipartisan continuity with Bush’s dismal policies. Les Aspin’s …
By spring of 1991 Yugoslavia was nearing terminal illness. The federal League of Communists had ceased to exist since the withdrawal of the Slovenian and Croatian branches. Although the federal premier Ante Markovic’s economic program managed to maintain relatively high …
It may seem churlish or nitpicking to write a critical comment on “The Future of Socialism in Africa” — especially since I agree with most of Richard L. Sklar’s admirable article. He is not only right on the mark, but …
