Unfortunately, no. The Muslim-majority bits of Bosnia are broken up into three disconnected pieces, separated by Croat- and Serb-majority regions.

So, even if you shave pieces off and give them to Serbia and Croatia, you still have large (and pissed off) Serb and Croat majorities in the new state.

Alternately, if you give those pieces to Serbia and Croatia, you have a Moslem ministate in three separate pieces, squeezed between Big Serbia and Enhanced Croatia. Good luck getting the Bosniaks to sign on to that.

I won’t even mention Brcko. Ooh, Brcko.

People look at Bosnia and realize that it’s screwed. That’s correct. What they miss is that it could easily be much worse.

Doug M.

There’s the problem then of the Croats and Bosniaks. The Croats would probably wish to join Croatia and the Muslims not. If that’t the case, Europe, the EU won’t have 3 more new entities, but rather an enlarged Croatia and Serbia with a smaller Bosniak state - so there’s no ‘new’ states being created. A reduced Bosniak rump will still be larger than some EU member states and more stable.

I guess the Serbs will settle for an independent Kosovo if they can keep the northen bank of the Ibar, and maybe the Albaniains will settle for that just to get the issue out of the way and declair independence so that they can get on with sorting out the economy etc.

Europe and the EU are too hung up on borders and not on peoples. Lives have been lost because states and polticians in authority wish to keep the status quo or/and deny the right to independence to other peoples. This isn’t an argument for ethnically pure states, none of these states will be ethnically pure. But there is a strong moral and practical argument for creating more nation states not less. Within a larger, more losely tied EU these states will flourish and so will the diversity of Europe’s cultures and languages. That’s more important than keeping the status quo on lines on maps.

Maybe we should re-read Leopold Khor’s seminal book (though rather incorrectly titled as he calls for the emergence of ‘non-historic nations’ like the Welsh, Basques etc) ‘The Breakdown of Nations’. http://www.cesc.net/radicalweb/realnations/lehner.html

http://greenbooks.co.uk/store/product_info.php?products_id=70

Sion, Wales

Also, compared to East Germany and the countries in between, the Baltic coast and the rest of the Balkans, there wasn’t a really compelling Soviet interest that could only be secured by military control.

A Yugoslavia that joined the EC in the 1980s–perhaps at the same time as Spain and Portugal, or even as Greece–would have to be a Yugoslavia that managed to democratize earlier. Perhaps Tito dies a decade earlier, in 1970, after the country has been established as federal but before the diffusion of federal powers indiscriminately to all of the republics, leaving a Yugoslav federal government that’s capable of functioning?

One factor that’s going to complicate Yugoslavian democratization, especially in the 1970s, is the Soviet Union. How friendly is Moscow likely to be towards a Communist state, non-Warsaw Pact though it may be, that sheds the Community monopoly on power and assimilates to western Europe? The southern European dictatorships, at least, weren’t likely to be victims of counterrevolutionary invasions.

This is the million dollar question that people in Serbia (and perhaps other parts of ex-yu) still talk about.

They point to Spain as an example of how EU membership delivered it from chaos.

My answer would be it would depend on when Yugoslavia would had joined.

But the break up of Yugoslavia would have occured sooner or later imo. Under EC tutelage a compromise would have been hatched enabling a confederation that would have left unitarists upset and nationalists disatisfied. This situation could have gone on for a number of years but then the inevitable referendums. Soon after cue the flag waving, hysterical scenes, pomp, the rewriting of history etc.

Violence? Yes probably. War? Dont think so. If the Yugoslav leadership (federal Presidency, army, ‘Socialist Party of Yugoslavia’???) had tied its mast tightly to the EU I feel it also likely that the EU would be deeply involved in preventing war - although this would depend on how much control had been ceeded to the Republics. If part of the confederation deal allowed the formation of large Republic ‘defence’ forces Republican leaders may have decided on war war rather than jj.

Thus it would have been vital for the EU to have reliable partners in the Republics to prevent bloodshed.

I would do anything to turn the clock back to see, and change history. It certainly couldnt have been any worse than what happened.

Yugoslavia as a whole had its elite too. I rather believe that the problem was that the Yugoslav elite was weak because of the federal structure and became even weaker when the republics held elections and got so more legitimacy. The solution would have been to have federal elections (even Europe has its elections). Unfortunately the US pressed for elections on the republican level, not on the national level.

If RS joins with Serbia, it gets worse. The effect on internal Serbian politics is going to be unpredictable and not necessarily good

Most people vote nationalist because they feel there are national issues that need to be solved. Adding the RS to Serbia will certainly reduce the number of issues.

In Bosnia the greatest believers in unity are supposed to be the Muslims. Yet I hear them mainly trying to paint the Serbs and Croats as war criminals. I miss the “we are in this together” even with their politicians.

And, like the Borg and the EU, Randy is being slowly but surely assimilated into AFOE…

It was Randy MacDonald who posted it originally. Randy, anything to add?

Oskar: Macedonia actually seems to be working. Nobody’s paying much attention, but there’s a functioning country there. Far, far from perfect, and it could still fall apart, but it’s working much better than Bosnia. (Key metric: both ethnic groups have parties in government and in opposition.)

Doug M.

Yugoslavia: already split up so there’s little use in discussing it now.

Montenegro: well, since the Montenegins are the ones who will bear the consequences of the separation (e.g. it’s not like they made much of a difference one way or another on the economy of Serbia) and they voted for separation let it be so. If those who voted to stay aren’t too upset, things should progress more or less as before.

Kosovo: well, I can’t see why Serbia would want 2 million people who hate the country as part of it. And they’re not likely to get rid of the Albanians from Kosovo (they tried that already). So, let the Kosovo Albanians have their independence. As for the Serbs in Kosovo, I can’t see why the Kosovar Albanians would want them in their shiny new independent state of Kosovo (lots of practical problems). Better to give the Serbs the northern part of the province and let those on the ‘wrong’ side move (prodded by subsidies). Maybe you can even move some of the old monasteries (buildings have been moved before). Would definately cut down on peace keeping costs.

Bosnia: this is a tricky one, mainly because of the political capital invested and the strange shapes of the entities. Best to probably keep it as a single state but give each entity enough independence (autonomy) to keep it satisfied.

Macedonia: this one is really difficult. To be continued, for sure…