The Yugoslav Wars/Analysis: Difference between revisions

*** A DEFINITE YMMV here. The fact is that the vast majority of, and the most systematic atrocities were carried out by Serbian forces.

** [[The Scapegoat]]: In spite of the complex nature of this conflict, the Serbs are blamed for every ill by Western media and painted as the aggressor, even though the break up of Yugoslavia was a civil war rather than a Serb [[Demonization|Nazi style conquest to expand their Lebensraum at the expense]] of the [[Designated Hero|"poor and innocent" Croats, Bosniaks and Albanians]].

* [[Dumb Muscle]]: Subverted. For being the largest and most powerful force in this conflict, you may ask yourself why they didn't roll over Bosnia and Croatia. Keep in mind that the local Croatian and Bosnian Serb army and militias were badly equipped, badly trained and only had the [[We Have Reserves|advantage of numbers]] once the JNA (and thus Serbia itself) abandoned them in 1992. Generals like Mladić were mediocre at best, while most of the Serb generals of the former JNA either left when the JNA was disbanded or remained passive with the VJ in Serbia. And even those employed questionable [[Hollywood Tactics|tactics]] and methods that often led to some [[wikipedia:Serbian war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars#War crimes|embarrassing results]]. Otherwise averted when you see the tactics they used during the NATO airstrikes that kept their military casualties at a minimum.

* [[The Empire]]: How they were perceived by the other factions and the majority of the outside world.

** Of course, leaving aside the [[Black and Gray Morality|ethics]] of the situation, they did fit the role on a strategic and tactical level: they had dominated the former Yugoslavia in its' dying days, and so when it devolved, they took the lion's share of the regular military and equipment while everybody else had at best remnants of the old territorial militias. This trope was even [[Invoked Trope|invoked by at least the Slovenes during their Ten Day War of independence]] [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|by drawing comparisons between the Serbian armor invading Slovenia and the Chinese tanks crushing the protests at Tianenmen Square.]] It was only later, when a combination of captured equipment and Western aid and training reached the Croats and Bosniaks that the strategic situation reversed itself.

* [[Enemy Mine]]: The only reason some of their neighbours seem to have a warm relationship is their common hatred towards the Serbs.

* [[Humiliation Conga]]: An awful lot of things went wrong for the Serbs in the last two decades. First the Serbian Krajna in Croatia falls after Operation Storm. Then comes the political suicide that was the massacre of Srebrenica which branded the Serbs as genocidal savages in the eyes of the Western world. The war in Bosnia ended with a draw after the Dayton Agreement prevented a military disaster of the VRS. While the Republika Srpska does exist within Bosnia and occupies 49% of the country, keep in mind that before the turning point in 1995 they held almost 70% of Bosnia. While in the Kosovo War the Serbian forces wiped the floor with the KLA, Serbia could not afford to continue the war with a ruined infrastructure and economy due to the NATO airstrikes for much longer. When the war ended, Belgrade lost its control over Kosovo and to rub salt in the wound most of the parliament members of the new state in Europe were former KLA members protected by the Western powers. Ouch!

** [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|Some of them]] were themselves also the subject of this trope, and in turn doled it out to at least a few of their enemies who also fit it.

* [[Memetic Mutation]]: The so-called ''Dat Face Soldier'' has his origins from [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSCJxxI83v4 this] propaganda song.

* [[Slave to PR]]: Something they should have kept in mind if they wished to avoid the demonisation by Western media.

* [[The Sociopath]]: An awful lot of their paramilitary formations like [[wikipedia:Serb Volunteer Guard|Arkan's Volunteer Guard]], the [[wikipedia:Scorpions chr(28)Serbiachr(29)|Scorpions]] or the [[wikipedia:White Eagles chr(28)paramilitarychr(29)|White Eagles]] who were mostly in for profit, plunder or simple [[For the Evulz]]. See [[Army of Thieves and Whores]] above.

* [[Strange Salute]]: The three-Finger salute.

** Inverted with the Bosnian Serbs whose military collapse was averted by the Dayton Agreement and NATO threatening the Bosniaks to bomb them too if they don't stop.

* [[Vestigial Empire]]: Serbia and Montenegro were what was left of Yugoslavia from 1992 - 2006. The Serbs also inherited most of the JNA arsenal.

* [[Diabolical Mastermind]]: A big part of the problems that led to the collapse of Yugoslavia were caused by him.

* [[Disc One Final Boss]]: By ousting Slobo in October 2000, Serbia's problems were far from over as the economy was still in ruins and most of the mob bosses who de facto reigned Serbia along him were still in charge until 2003.

* [[Evilly Affable]]: He may have been responsible for a lot of misery in Yugoslavia and he may have lived at the expense of the Serbian population that was starving under UN sanctions, yet he never lost his charisma.

* [[Evil Is Hammy]]

* [[Tyrant Takes the Helm]]: While things wheren't sunshine and roses for Serbia since the late 1970s it was when Milošević ousted Stambolić and took power that things really started to go downhill.

* [[Villain Ball]]: He held it tightly during the Kosovo War and did things that caused him a lot of unnecessary problems.

* [[Visionary Villain]]: At least how he presented himself. While officially he tried to keep as many Serbs as possible in one state, thus keeping Yugoslavia alive, Slobo was in reality a political opportunist who used the nationalist sentiment as a mean to manipulate the Serbs for his goals.

* [[Sergeant Rock]]

* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: What might have happened to him if you see it from a certain point of view. The capture of Mladić was one of the main conditions for Serbia to join the EU. No matter how you see it, it is still interesting that a few days after [[wikipedia:Jos%C3%A9 Manuel Barroso|Barroso]] promised Serbia that the recognition of Kosovo's independence would not be a condition to join the EU, Mladić was captured and sent to the Hague.

=== Milan Lukić ===

=== Patriarch Pavle ===

* [[The Messiah]]: He was often reffered as "The Walking Saint"

{{quote| '''Pavle:''' I will not purchase an automobile until every Albanian and Serbian household in Kosovo and Metohija has one.}}

* [[Too Cool to Live]]

* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]: How most Serbs think about him.

== The Croats ==

[[File:Croats_8878.jpg|frame]]

* [[Character Development]]: Just like Serbia, Croatia's political landscape changed since the end of the war to the point of being almost unrecognizable.

** The [[wikipedia:Croatian Democratic Union|HDZ]] which started as right-wing ultranationalist thugs turned into Christian democrats and center-right social conservatives over the years. The [[wikipedia:Croatian Party of Rights|HSP]] transformed itself from neo-fascists to right-wing ultranationalists.

* [[Determinator]]: Against all odds the Croats held out in [[wikipedia:Battle of Vukovar|Vukovar]] against a larger force of the JNA and local Serb militia making it a Pyrrhic victory at best for them.

* [[The Empire]]: How the Krajna Serbs viewed and Serb media portrayed them.

* [[The Rival]]: To the Serbs.

=== Franjo Tuđman ===

* [[From Nobody to Nightmare]]: He started out as a construction worker and owner of a pizzeria before being Croatia's Minister of Defense.

* [[Red Baron]]: The Pizza Man.

=== Anton Tus ===

* [[Only Sane Man]]

* [[Tear Jerker]]: His death at the hands of a Croatian assassin, who was certainly not acting alone. To add insult to injury, his murderer was pardoned by none other than Franjo Tuđman himself. The murderer then moved to Australia, where he lived in relative luxury for a decade. While the assassin was finally caught and sentenced a few years ago, Croatian courts showed very little interest in finding out who ''ordered'' the assassination - and this is despite evidence pointing to some key figures in the Croatian Democratic Union (and some of whom are still active in Croatian politics!).

== The Bosniaks ==

=== Tropes that apply to all Bosniak factions ===

* [[Zerg Rush]]: A popular tactic employed by the ArBiH.

* [[Start of Darkness]]: Contrary to popular belief, Albanians and Serbs had a relatively normal relationship until the early 20th century. When Serbia took Macedonia, Sandžak and Kosovo and occupied parts of northern Albania during the Balkan Wars, the local Albanians, who sided with the Ottomans, went on an armed resistance against the Serbs. The Serbs in return retaliated brutally. Since then Serbia made no effort to integrate her Albanian population while the Albanians showed little to no interest in being part of Serbia. After [[World War I]] the Serb dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia followed a predatory policy towards Albania attempting to annex northern Albanian territorries while encouraging Serbs to resettle Kosovo. During [[World War II]] forces of the Axis aligned Albania and militias like the Balli Kombëtar commited a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovo Serbs. In Tito's Yugoslavia Serb refugees were prohibited from returning to Kosovo while said region became an Autonomous Province and 1974 a de facto republic. After many years of local authorities abusing said right by allowing the development aid to be lost in the swamp of corruption and turning a blind eye on the violence towards Serbs and other ethnic minorities, Kosovo lost its privileges in 1990. As a result the Albanians created a parallel state known as the [[wikipedia:Republic of Kosova|Republic of Kosova]] and resisted Serb authorities either passively and non-violently by rallying behind Ibrahim Rugova, or joined the KLA which became active in 1996.

* [[Villain White Washing Service]]: Again the KLA by the Western media. An irredentist terrorist group who weren't any better than the IRA or the ETA, who had a good share of atrocities, who had ties to organized crime and accoring to some reports even Osama Bin Laden and whose goal was a [[wikipedia:Greater Albania|Greater Albania]] cleansed of Serbs, Roma and other "undesired elements".

*** Allegedly, many NATO soldiers are dreaming of the day they can open fire on the Albanian gangsters they are meant to protect. This is what always happens when you try to solve the Balkan gang war by knocking out the largest gang; another gang will simply move in and take over.

* [[The Scrappy]]: How they were sadly treated not only by the Serbs, but by other peoples of Yugoslavia as well (though not as much as the Roma but still). The fact that Albanians aren't Slavs (and thus felt alienated to the premise of Yugoslavia herself) and that every republic was obliged to offer economic development aid to the poorer ones (especially Kosovo) might have been a factor.

* [[Organ Theft]]: What he and his goons are accused of.

* [[Professional Butt-Kisser]]: How many of his fellow Albanians from the [[wikipedia:Vet%C3%ABvendosje!|Vetëvendosje!]] movement regard him.

=== Agim Çeku ===

* [[Unfortunate Implications]]: The Luftwaffe's participation on the air strikes against Yugoslavia amongst the German people.

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]

{{reflist}}