Balkan tragedy: chaos and dissolution after the Cold War

1135 Pages·1995·3.78 MB·English

by  Susan L. Woodward

Balkan Tragedy
Chaos and Dissolution
After the Cold War
Susan L. Woodward
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
WASHINGTON, D. C.

Balkan Tragedy : Chaos and Dissolution
title:
After the Cold War
author: Woodward, Susan L.
publisher: Brookings Institution Press
isbn10 | asin: 0815795149
print isbn13: 9780815795148
ebook isbn13: 9780585098777
language: English
Yugoslav War, 1991-1995--Causes,
subject
Nationalism--Yugoslavia.
publication date: 1995
lcc: DR1313.W66 1995eb
ddc: 949.702/4
Yugoslav War, 1991-1995--Causes,
subject:
Nationalism--Yugoslavia.
Copyright © 1995
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Woodward, Susan L.
Balkan tragedy: chaos and dissolution after the Cold War / Susan
L. Woodward.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8157-9514-9 : alk. paper ISBN 0-8157-9513-0 (pbk.: alk.
paper)
1. Yugoslav War, 1991-Causes. 2. NationalismYugoslavia.
I. Brookings Institution. II. Title.
DR1313.W66 1995
949.702´4dc20 94-12742
CIP
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
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Page vii
Foreword
Few issues of foreign policy and world order in our time have evoked
as much division, emotion, and disillusionment as the war in Bosnia-
Herzegovina. Although major powers considered the conflict of little
strategic consequence, their inability to prevent the violence, reverse
its course, or resolve the crisis was widely judged a failure of Western
leadership and corroded the credibility of regional and international
institutions. These international institutions, and many domestic
institutions in Europe, had been created after World War II precisely
to prevent the repetition of such developments in Europe. Even the
successes that were claimed for international intervention, of
containment and humanitarian relief, were under constant threat of
reversal with a new round of fighting that could escalate and spread.
In this book, Susan L. Woodward, senior fellow in the Brookings
Foreign Policy Studies program, argues that the failure arose from a
lack of understanding of the causes of the conflict, and the application
of cold war thinking and instruments that were not appropriate to the
case. Although many books have attempted to bring the plight of
Bosnia and the fall of Yugoslavia to the attention of the outside world,
this is one of the few that attempts to analyze the causes of these
events and that weaves into the story of decline and war the influence
of the international environment and outside actors.
The significance of the Yugoslav case cannot be underestimated as an
early warning of other such conflicts currently brewing. The collapse
of political orders under international pressures, economic austerity,
and policies of economic reform and liberalization during the 1980s
has led in many parts of the world to a massive upheaval. The
stabilizing social, economic, and political mechanisms that countries
used over the past fifty years are often proving inadequate to new
circumstances. Dealing with each instance as a separate case disguises
the common elements and the need for a collective response.
This book grows out of the decades of gracious hospitality, scholarly
exchange, and open encounters with strangers for which the former
Yugoslavia