The disintegration of Yugoslavia was accomplished by 5 over-lapping wars.

The first of the 5 Yugoslav wars was about to begin.

It is very difficult to keep track of all the wars of Yugoslavia because they did not fall into line neatly without overlaps.  It really was a schmozzle.

The brilliant historian, Tony Judt tried his best to make sense of this:

…the Yugoslav wars, for there were five.  The Yugoslav attack on Slovenia lasted just a few weeks, after which the army withdrew and allowed the secessionist state to depart in peace. There then followed a far bloodier war between Croatia and its rebellious Serb minority (backed by the army of ‘Yugoslavia’—in practise Serbia and Montenegro) that lasted until an uneasy cease-fire brokered by the UN early in the following year. After the Croats and Muslims of Bosnia voted for independence in March 1992, the Serbs of Bosnia declared war on the new state and set about carving out a ‘Republic of Srpska’ again with the backing of the Yugoslav army, [the ‘JNA’] laying siege to a number of Bosnia towns—notably the capital Sarajevo.

Meanwhile, in January 1993 a separate civil war broke out between the Croats and Muslims of Bosnia, with some attempting to carve out an ephemeral statelet in the Croat-dominated region of Herzegovina. And finally, after these other conflicts had been brought to an end (though not before the Croat-Serb war broke out afresh in 1995 with a successful move Zagreb to recapture Krajina, lost to Serv forces three years before), came the war in and over Kosovo and was only preventing from destroying or expelling its Albanian population by an unprecedented attack on Serbia itself by NATO forces in the spring of 1999.

 

The first of those wars was one of the least bloody.  After just a few weeks of attacking Slovenia for trying to rebel, in 1991 the Yugoslav army withdrew, permitting the secessionist state to depart in peace.

The second war, against Croatia by its Serbian minority, supported by the “Yugoslav” army, which really meant Belgrade and Montenegro, was much more devastating. It was bloody like only civil wars are bloody. That war lasted until 1992 when the UN finally lost its stomach for the growing casualties and finally brokered an uneasy cease-fire.

It really was a melee of wars, difficult for a poor student like me, to make any sense of. But I am trying. I hope my poor readers bear with me, because I will try to make clear why it is important, for us hear in Canada and the United States.