Recently, tensions have been growing in Kosovo, as the Albanian-speaking Muslim majority  moves toward voting for full independence from Serbia.  In response to this movement, veterans of Serb irregular forces, or militias are gravitating toward the Serb-inhabited areas of Kosovo.  These Serb fighters are threatening to launch a rebellion against the Kosovars if they seek independence.  Below is some background information on the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s and early 21st Century.

This post (below) is excerpted from the History Guy page on the Third Balkan War.

Yugoslavia (literally, Land
of the South Slavs), was a nation born out of the ashes of World War
One, created through the merger of the mostly Catholic regions of
Slovenia and Croatia with the Eastern Orthodox Kingdoms of Serbia and
Montenegro. Included in the new nation was the land of Bosnia,
ethnically and religiously divided among Catholic Croats, Orthodox
Serbs and Muslim Slavs. In southern Yugoslavia lay the region of
Kosovo, a fairly new addition to Serbia, containing a largely Muslim
population which spoke Albanian. Until World War 2, this land of many
nationalities held together fairly well. Then, with the Axis invasion
of 1941 and the subsequently brutal occupation by the Germans and
Italians, the old ethnic divisions surfaced into a very bitter civil
war. This conflict primarily pitted the Croats, who allied themselves
with the Axis, against Serbs. Following the war, the Communist
dictator, Josip Broz Tito, reunited Yugoslavia with a firm hand,
imprisoning nationalists from all sides. Following his death 1980,
the system he held together slowly began to unravel.

By 1991, the Serbian
politician Slobodan Milosovic gained power in Yugoslavia through
inciting Serb nationalism. Along with growing nationalistic feelings
in the other parts of Yugoslavia, the day came when Slovenia and
Croatia declared independence from what they saw as a nation
dominated by Serbs. The Yugoslav Army attempted to prevent the
breakaway republics from leaving, but soon failed. Serbs living in
southern and western Croatia then attempted to break away and form a
new nation called Krajina. In 1992, Bosnia also broke away from
Yugoslavia, precipitating yet another war. In southern Yugoslavia,
the region called Macedonia broke away peacefully to form an
independent nation.

Below is a listing, with
some detail, of what can be called "The Third Balkan War." Yugoslavia
is a part of the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. The first
two Balkan Wars were short conflicts at the start of the Twentieth
Century. As this war can be divided into wars within wars within yet
more wars, each separate conflict is indented, showing which larger
war it is a part of. As the former Yugoslavia continues to subdivide
itself with each new conflict, more wars are added. The latest
conflicts are the Kosovo
War of 1998-1999, the
Presevo
Rebellion of 2000-Present,
and the new Albanian
Uprising in Macedonia,
which began in March of 2001.

Third
   Balkan War (1991-Present)-The breakup of Yugoslavia can be seen as one long conflict divided into at least nine (and counting) separate wars, rebellions and  uprisings, all which involve parts of the disintegrated Balkan nation.
   
   
       
    Yugoslav
Civil War (1991-1992)-The breakup of Yugoslavia as one nation, involved two separate but
                   related wars. The Yugoslav regions of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from the Belgrade                government.
      
      

            Slovenian
  War of Independence (1991)-Slovenia’s war against the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav Army             was short and victorious. This was due in part to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s realization                 that his main worry was the war in neighboring Croatia.
         
         

            Croatian
War of Independence
  (1991-1995)-Croatia  fought both the Yugoslav/Serbian Army and Serb             rebels in the Krajina region.

                Krajina
  Rebellion (1991-1995)-Croatia’s Serb minority attempted to form a separate nation during
                      the Croatian War of Independence from Yugoslavia. The Serb rebels succeeded in driving the                             Croatian military
out of the Krajina region bordering Bosnia. However, in  May of 1995, the Croatian                     Army launched an effective offensive (Operation Storm), which forced an end to the  Krajina                                 Republic. As a result of this action, most Krajina Serbs fled into Serbia in a form of "ethnic                                      cleansing." The Yugoslav/Serb Army aided the Krajina rebels. Many of these Serb refugees settled                     in  the Voyvodina region of northern Serbia, but some of them moved to the Serb province of Kosovo,                 which erupted into war in 1998.
            
            

                During the Bosnian War, airplanes from Krajina bombed Muslim held Bihac in Bosnia. Following this,                 NATO warplanes bombed the Serb airfield at Udbina in Krajina.

 

Bosnian Civil War (1992-1995) -Also  involved Croatia, Yugoslavia/Serbia and NATO. In April of 1992,  Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia. Almost
  immediately, the Bosnian Serb population rebelled against the  Muslim and Croatian portions of the new nation. Parts of the war saw the Muslims and Croatians cooperate against their common foe, but from 1993-1994, Bosnia saw a three-way war when
the Muslims and Croats battled each other as well as fighting  the Serbs. Troops from Serbia/Yugoslavia and the rebel Krajina area entered Bosnia to aid the Bosnian Serbs, while the Croatian Army aided the Bosnian Croat forces. In April, 1994, NATO forces began selected, limited bombing of Serb positions
around the capital of Sarajevo in an attempt to force the Serbs  to the peace table.
      
      

On February 5, 1994, Serb artillery hit a marketplace in Sarajevo, causing severe civilian casualties. This caused increased
American pressure on the Muslims and Croats to stop fighting
each other and unite against the Serbs. On Feb. 23, both sides  signed a cease-fire, which soon led to the formation of the Muslim/Croat Bosnian Federation.

      
      

August 28, 1995, Serb mortars cause 37 civilian dead in Sarajevo.
Major NATO (Operation Deliberate Force) airstrikes against the
Serbs began on August 30 and continued until a bombing pause on
September 14. U.S. airpower contributed 65.9% of the NATO air sorties. At this point, the Bosnian Serbs agreed to end thefighting and participate as a part of the Bosnian nation.
      

      
      

Fikrit  Abdic Uprising (Autumn of 1993-1995)  –In addition to fighting the Serbs and Croats, the Bosnian (mostly Muslim) government also had to deal with an uprising  by a Bosnian Muslim businessman named Fikrit Abdic.  He allied himself with local Serb forces against the  government. In July, 1995, Bosnian government forces
captured Abdic’s stronghold in the Bihac region.
  News article on Bihac Muslims following Abdic’s fall.

      
      

Sources on the
Bosnian War:

      
      

CRS 93056: Bosnia: U.S. Military Operations

      
      

Former Yugoslavia Chronology

      
      

Bombs Over Bosnia: The Role of Airpower in  Bosnia-Herzegovina

      
      

Unconquered Bosnia–Website
      containing numerous articles on the Bosnia War.

      
      

NATO and U.N. Involvement in Bosnia

      
      

Kosovo
War (1998-1999) Links Page-Also  involved NATO. Ethnic Albanians living in the Serbian province  of Kosovo sought independence from the Yugoslav Serb government  in Belgrade. After a 78-day bombing campaign by NATO forces,
      the Serbian army evacuated Kosovo. See also The History Guy: Warfare and Conflict Between Kosovar Albanians and Serbs Since 1912.

      
      

Presevo Rebellion (2000-2001)-One of the latest conflicts to come out of the Yugoslav breakup is a small (so far), rebellion by ethnic Albanians living in the
     Presevo Valley region of Serbia. This area borders on  Kosovo.

      
      

Albanian Uprising in Macedonia (2001)-The  latest conflict to come out of the Yugoslav breakup is a
violent rebellion by ethnic Albanians living in the area of
     Macedonia bordering on Kosovo and Serbia. Macedonia is thesouthernmost of the new post-Yugoslav nations. Albanians form a sizable minority in Macedonia.

      
      

 

SOURCES:

1. Kohn, George
C. Dictionary
of Wars. New
York: Facts On File Publications, 1986.

3. Langer, William L.,
ed. An Encyclopedia of World History. 5th ed. Boston,
Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1972.

4. Banks, Arthur S., ed.
Political Handbook of the World: 1994-1995. 5th ed.
Binghamton, NY: CSA Publications, 1995.

5. Internal
Wars and Failures of Governance,
1954-1996–By
the State Failure Project.

Turkey is facing a major crisis between its history of secular (non-religious) government, and the aspirations of the current ruling political party.  Many urban Turks support the continuation of the secular political culture, while many rural Turks, who are generally more religious, favor laws and policies that reflect a religious outlook on life and politics.  Many nations deal with similar issues through debates and elections, but Turkey is unique: a Muslim, pro-Western democracy which belongs to NATO and is currently seeking admission to the European Union (EU).  It also has a history of the military stepping in to preserve the status quo.

Four times since the founding of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s, the military has stepped in to effect a change in government. Now, in the spring of 2007, tensions in Turkey are mounting as military leaders are once again issuing warnings to the government of the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AK Party) . Massive street protests by hundreds of thousands of urban secular Turks protesting the perceived religious bias of the ruling party, but also hoping that a new coup does not occur. 

A leftist May Day protest turned violent this year, with hundreds of protesters injured and hundreds arrested.  The violence of the police response is indicative of the tensions in Turkey.  The ruling AK party is also trying to change the constitution to allow for a more powerful, popularly elected president.  The president is currently elected by the parliament.  Secularists fear that this change would make it easier for a religious Islamist candidate to become president, and would also give him more authority to change laws and policies related to education and other issues that secularists and religious conservatives differ on.

Turkey is a member of NATO, and is a steadfast ally of the United States, (and, oddly, for a Muslim country, an ally of Israel).  A military coup could lead to violence, or even to a civil war.  A similar situation existed in Algeria in the early 1990s, when the military there overturned the results of an election won by an Islamist party.  The result of that coup was a long civil war that claimed at least 200,000 lives.  With the current war in neighboring Iraq, it is not hard to see a very bad situation if al-Qaida or other radical Islamist groups were to gain a foothold in a Turkey racked by civil war or some other sort of underground Islamist resistance to military rule.

A coup in Turkey, in the current political climate in the Middle East, could lead to a disastrous situation for the entire region.  And, don’t forget, when we talk about "the entire region" in relation to this country, part of Turkey is also located in the Balkan region of Europe.

The History Guy: Military Coups in Turkey (1960-1997)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2007/05/02/turkish_violence_marks_may_day/

The War in Afghanistan is often forgotten in America against the backdrop of the violence in Iraq and the almost daily list of casualties from that war.  In Canada, however, Afghanistan and the war there have taken center stage in Canadian foreign policy and defense issues.

Canada, like the rest of the NATO allies, rushed to help the U.S. in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, joining the American military in liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies.   As the warfare in Afghanistan starts to ratchet up again this  spring/summer, Canada, which does not support the war in Iraq, is facing increasing casualties and is looking at those European NATO allies who they feel are not doing their part to help out with combat duties in the war.

2,500 Canadian troops serve in Afghanistan, and the government recently extended their mission until 2009.  54 Canadian troops have perished since 2001, which is quite a few, considering that Canada is more used to seeing her soldiers in peacekeeping roles than in actual combat.  The last major war with Canadian involvement was Korea, over fifty years ago.

So, what is the solution to the issue of the other allies, those with troops there, but who decline major combat roles, (see previous post on Dutch forces in Afghanistan)?  With hindsight, it is clear that the U.S. and the Allies should have put more combat forces in the fight early in the war to truly smash the Taliban, not just drive them back in to the mountains and over the border to Pakistan.  Hindsight is nice, but it does not solve the problem.  NATO should make a concerted effort to flood Afghanistan with combat troops, engage in a major offensive that does not end with the beginning of winter, and truly pressure Pakistan to end the Taliban’ s presence over the border.  Canada is right…the other allies need to step up in order to win this war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/world/americas/23canada.html

A recent article in the New York Times highlights some of the problems the Allies face in dealing with the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/world/asia/06afghan.html

The Dutch regular army troops take a very different approach to pacification than the Americans, British, Canadians, and other allies.  The Dutch focus more on making personal contact with the locals, cultivating relationships, and, most unusual of all for combat troops, they avoid combat with the enemy. 

Many of history’s best counter-insurgency campaigns focused a great deal of energy, time, and resources, on denying the enemy forces the use, cover, and allegiances of the local population.  Some, campaigns, such as the British concentration camps for the Boer civilian population and the Spanish attempt to squelch the Cuban Revolution in the 1890s, used barbaric methods to achieve their aims.  (The British won, the Spanish managed to tick off the Americans so much that the U.S. intervened).  The Dutch method goes to the other end of the spectrum to an extreme.  Be friendly, polite, build schools and roads, and don’t kill anyone.  Even if they shoot at you.

Back in the 1990s, the Dutch participated in an Allied attempt to protect Bosnian Muslims (http://www.historyguy.com/balkan_war_third.htm) at a place called Srebernica.  The Dutch soldiers avoided combat, and allowed the Serbs to slaughter 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.  If I were an Afghan civilian making nice with the Allies in this war, and I have to depend on the Dutch Boys from the Gandhi School of Pacification to save my life from the Taliban or al-Qaida, I’d better have my funeral plot picked out in advance. 

In all the talk of the "Surge" of American troops into Baghdad, one facet of that increase of soldiers is that they are now supposed to be actively patrolling neighborhoods and making face-to-face contact with local civilians.  In this sense the American strategy in Iraq is similar to the Dutch ploy in Afghanistan.  The comparison ends here though, since we all know that the U.S. troops are going to defend themselves and shoot back.

Nuclear War is Bad for the
Environment…

…and for humans, dogs, cats,
cows, and just about everything else. Though it could end up solving global warming, at least for a
while. Seriously though, several recent
news stories point out the increasing dangers associated with the nearly
unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons in an increasingly unstable
world. 

What exactly are the possible
scenarios for small-scale regional nuclear conflicts? Those are exactly the type of wars that the
scientists at the American Geophysical Union’s annual
meeting in

San Francisco

warned about.

Even a
Small Nuclear War Could Change the World: New Study Shows Distant and Minor
Nuclear Blasts Could Cause a Global ‘Nuclear Winter’—ABC News Dec. 12, 2006

Megacities, global warming
make nuclear war even more dangerousNow that
civilization has moved to cities, we are easier bombing targets, say experts. —By Michael
Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com, Dec. 11, 2006

The War and
Conflict Journal sees several realistic scenarios that could occur within the
next few years.

Scenario 1: Nuclear

North Korea

rolls the dice and makes a go at taking over

South Korea

. The President of South Korea does not appear
too worried though. He says that despite
the North’s nuclear weaponry, the South would still prevail. Is the man a fool, or has

South Korea

have a nuclear ace up its sleeve?

Roh says nuclear North
Korea no match in warfare to the South

Scenario 2: 

Iran

and

Israel

duke it out with nukes. Iran’s President is famous for periodically
threatening to wipe Israel off of the map, but Israel’s Prime Minister recently
all but admitted that Israel has nuclear weapons (a well-known fact, but Israel
consistently has not admitted such). These two nations could easily wipe out the entire Middle East and its
oil supplies (once

Iran

creates those weapons).

ISRAEL NUKE
COMMENT SPARKS CONTROVERSY

History Guy: Israel-Lebanon/Hezbollah War (2006)

Scenario 3: The

U.S.

(with or
without allies), tries to take out

Iran

’s nuclear processing
facilities. To take out the hardened
underground sites, the

U.S.

may resort to “mini-nukes,” or nuclear “bunker-busting” weapons. Messy.

Attack
on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War

History Guy: Iran-U.S. Hostage Crisis (1979-1981)

Scenario 4: 

India

and

Pakistan

, who each possess at least
50 nuclear weapons, fight another war and go nuclear. The two old enemies have been talking peace
lately, but with an active Islamist insurgency in Indian-ruled

Kashmir

, and very important elements of the Pakistani
military and security forces backing the insurgency, the possibility of a
future war that could go nuclear is ever present.

India’s
Strategic Environment and the Role of Military Power—Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, August 22, 2006

History Guy: Wars of India

History Guy:
Indo-Pakistani Wars

 Scenario 4.1: A coup topples
President Mushareff of

Pakistan

and the new government is openly pro-Taliban, pro-al-Qaida, and calls for holy
war to free Kashmir from

India

. The

U.S.

,

Britain

, and

India

decide to take out

Pakistan

’s
nuclear capability. 

U.S.

and British
special forces try to seize the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, but miss a few,
while the Indian military surges across the border to end the “Pakistani
problem” once and for all. Use your
imagination on how a pro-Taliban Pakistani government would react to such an
attack… NOTE: There supposedly WAS such an Anglo-American plan to seize

Pakistan

’s
nukes right after 9/11 when it was not clear which way Mushareff would go when
told to choose between continuing his support of the Taliban and aligning with the
West.

U.S.
Worries about Pakistan Nuclear Arms—

Washington

Post, Nov. 4, 2001

Bombing Pakistan Back
to the Stone Age by Eric
Margolis

 Scenario 4.2: 

India

and

China

re-fight their 1962 border war, except this time they both have nukes. Even though they have been talking nicely to
each other lately,

India

has
made no secret of its concern that

China

’s
recent military expansion is up to three times a large as publicly acknowledged
by

Beijing

.

Other scenarios
exist of course, but in terms of the most likely wars between nations, these
are the most likely. And you thought the
end of the Cold War made the world a safer place, didn’t you?