Balkanization seems to be a well-deserved synonym for strife. A long history of belligerent actions, territorial disputes and treaty breechings helped apply the balkanization label. Yugoslavia after Tito’s death acted in the tradition of the aforementioned word. Well before the communism lost its grip on the SE European states ethnic dispute already rose in Yugoslavia. All the ethnic groups comprised in the federation started acting nationalistically, proving that “Brotherhood and Unity” was sometimes only communist propaganda. The democratization and the freedom of speech, together with all the strains a transitional economy puts on the citizen brought Yugoslavia’s demise. As the situation grew worse in what is now known as former Yugoslavia the West failed to come up with coherent or at least remotely useful policy.
The American failure of drafting and impleme
In the aforementioned circumstances, when balkanism expressed at its full, the Western states did not have any real chance of dissuading any of the actors but for serious threats of armed intervention. The EU could not threat since it hadn’t the capability, as it proved in later stages of the conflict. US could not seriously threat with armed intervention since the Administration could not risk American lives for something that still has not shocked the public. The West did not do much good in diffusing the conflict… but considering the internal and external situation, how much was there to do?
All the above policies were applied to a zone that was more or less consumed by ethnical conflicts. All of the states within former Yugoslavia were rather nationalistic. Moreover, as anywhere in the Balkans, each state can assert ethnic or historic claims to surrounding terri
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