YUGOSLAVIA - 1914 ALL OVER AGAIN? EDITOR'S NOTE: This essay is from noted military columnist and wargame designe r, Austin Bay. Apart from being the designer and driving force behind the popu lar S&T issue game Arabian Nightmare, Austin is also a well known author and wr ites a regular military/international political science column for the Houston Chronicle. This article was sent to us by Austin and appeared in the May 22 ed ition of the Houston Chronicle. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @copyright Austin Bay May 19, 1991 The Austrian Army goes on "a heightened state of alert." The Greeks glance north. Rogue Hungarians ship machineguns to Croatian "national policemen." Muslim Bosnians are threatened by Croats to the west and Serbs to the east. Enfeebled Bulgaria makes a diplomatic overture to Macedonia. Restive Alabanians riot. Background for a thriller set in 1914? No, a short survey of what passes for 1991 fact in Yugoslavia's slowly fuzing civil war. In a world already weary of post-Cold War crises an explosion in the Balkans might seem almost historically quaint. After all, Serbia isn't in the oil business, is it? Admittedly, the Austrian Army is preparing for the current means of invasion in Europe: Political and economic refugees fleeing a collapsing Communist system. The Balkans aren't the European "powderkeg" they once were. But how Yugoslavia devolves, either through peaceful reorganization or violent civil immolation is the model for addressing political and ethnic troubles seeding Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in particular. The same elements bloodying Yugoslavia plague the USSR: historic hatreds, economic failure, imperial aspirations, and a still- Communist Army waiting to combat "anarchy" - or democracy. Given that frame of reference, how the Yugoslav crisis evolves takes on international significance. Yugoslavia was born shattered, a fragile political myth with external threat for glue. This century's Balkan wars and World War I made a confederation of the weak "south Slav" (yugo-Slav) states an act of necessary convenience. Fascist threat from Austria, Hungary, and Italy helped generate a degree of unity even before the Nazi invasion in 1941. Wartime Communist leader Josip Broz Tito cemented the Yugoslav mosaic, with force of personality, force of arms, and force of secret police. After the war, the Tito-Stalin rift became another very convenient focus for fear directed towards Moscow. Ironically, the end of the Cold War brings history back to the Balkans. Complex? There are over three dozen more or less valid land claims among these un-nesting neighbors. Religious and cultural differences exacerbate troubles. One ethnic rule of thumb says a Yugoslav is a Croat if he's Catholic and uses the Latin alphabet, a Serb if he's Orthodox Christian and writes in Cyrillic, and a Bosnian if he's Muslim. Here are some other key issues. First: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, and the Albanian and Hungarian minorities all have an historic fear of Serbian domination. The 140,000 man "Yugoslav Army" is viewed by many as an instrument of Serb oppression. If armed conflict breaks out between Serbian and Croatian police forces what will the Yugoslav Army do? 70% of the officer corps is either Serbian or Montenegrin (and Montenegrins are, in fact, Serbs). Will "successful" Yugoslav Army action against "anarchy" encourage Stalinists in the Soviet Army? Second: Serbia's leader Slobodan Milosevic, isn't a man given to compromise. Variously portrayed as a maverick Communist and/or calculating Serb nationalist bent on creating a "Greater Serbia" with himself as the Greater Serbian leader, last week's denial of the rotating presidency to the Croat Republic president, Stipe Mesic, has been viewed as his doing. The unwillingness of the Milosevic to compromise was one of the major reasons the US has now suspended a $5 million aid program to Belgrade. Next, there's the conflict between democrats and dictators. Slovenia and Croatia have democratically elected governments. The other republics and ethnic regions suffer from various forms of authoritarian rule. Last Sunday Croatia voted to become a separate country, joining neighboring Slovenia. The ethnic majorities of these western-most, most westernized, and most prosperous Yugoslav republics, have already made the psychological break. Finally, many intelligence analysts view this as potentially the most dangerous unknown: if Yugoslavia does fragment in violence, where does Macedonia go. Macedonia made Yugoslavia a go by being able to play off the Croats against the Serbs. Macedonia has many traditional ties to Bulgaria. Two wars have been fought in this century where one of the key issues was ruling Macedonia. Perhaps Bulgaria today is too weak and too polluted to make war. Yet in a chaotic political situation moving towards war, Bulgaria is also the only former European Soviet satellite likely to call upon the Russians to aid them. If a Yugoslav civil war occurred five years hence perhaps a reunited Germany could take the political lead in calming the Balkans (though German participation might scare more people than it would reassure). Pre-emptive UN action, with US and Soviet leadership, action that would include UN observers and plebiscites, would help avoid bloodshed. What might work? A "transitional Yugoslavia" of five new nations (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia-Montenegro, and Macedonia) linked in a "free trade zone." All the republics maintain independent paramilitary and military forces but a "national defense pact" and rump Yugoslav "confederation council" continues to operate in Belgrade. Resolution of the simmering troubles in Serbia's Albanian Kosovo Province and where Macedonia goes will be made dependent on democratic changes in Albania and Bulgaria. The code name is "a regional solution." If the transitional confederation and promises of regional democratic elections buy a decade of acrimony but avoids bloodshed the world, and the USSR, will be better off.