The Yugoslav Wars: Difference between revisions

A series of six wars encompassing [[Balkanise Me|the former]] [[Yugoslavia]] from 1991-2001:

Basically, without [[Josip Broz Tito|somebody]] to hold it together, Yugoslavia ripped itself apart in a spectacular fashion, producing the only big war in Europe since [[World War Two]]. Essentially the roots are religious and ethnic. Serbs aligned with Greeks and became Orthodox Christians, Croats aligned with the Magyars and became Catholic, while the Bosniaks aligned with the Ottomans and became Muslim. The wars also had an economic edge to them; the two northern republics were the most heavily industrialized, and their inhabitants often accused the government of subsidizing the Serb plurality (Serbs amounted to about 36% of the population; next largest were Croats at about 20%) at their expense, making them the first to bail.

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Palyed with in ''Operation Allied Force'' when it turned out that NATO airstrikes did actually minimal damage to the Serbian military itself, though considerable infrastructural and strategic damage (to say nothing of relatively high collateral).

** Played straight with ''Operation Storm'' and the Croat and Bosnian offensives that ended the war.

* [[Death World]]: Most of eastern Bosnia during that time.

* [[Eagle Squadron]]: Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Serbs all had foreigners head over to help them out. As a general rule, Bosnia received volunteers from the Muslim Arab world, Bosnian Serbs from Serbia Greece and Russia, and Croatia from Western European countries.

* [[Enemy Mine]]: In the early stages of the war Tuđman and Milošević made a deal to carve up Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia.

** In 1994 Croats and Bosniaks allied themselves under US pressure against the Serbs.

* [[Flame Bait]]: Mostly due to it's recent history and [[Misplaced Nationalism]].

* [[Follow the Leader]]: Franjo Tuđman had [http://www.ljubomir.de/images/tudman_156.jpg a uniform] that was similar to [http://www.bmlv.gv.at/pool/img/a01_589.jpg Tito]'s. There is even a popular joke in former Yugoslavia describing this trope: Tito and Tuđman meet each other in hell. Tuđman greets him with "Hello dictator!" while Tito replies with "Hello imitator!".

* [[Funny Moment]] / [[Black Comedy]] : The trials in the Hague have a lot of these. Šešelj in particular is a comedic gold mine.

* [[Glamorous Wartime Singer]]: All sides spawned a lot of examples of this trope who depended on nationalism instead of sex appeal. From a certain point of view this war also provided a deconstruction of this trope. While many of them like Knindža and Thompson seemed not to have noticed that the war is over and still perform nationalist songs on their concerts (although not surprising given subservient attitude of new Croatian "democratic" governments in regards to... everyone), Bosniak singers suffered a [[Hype Backlash]]. Being the largest and most widely distributed ethnic group, the Serbs are still one of the biggest music markets in the Balkans and anyone who wants to start a significant career (especially in the folk and Turbofolk genre) depends on a commercial success with the Serbs. Many Bosniak singers didn't want or werent allowed to appear on Serbian television. Same also applies for Serbian singers within their (former) Bosniak fandom to the point of their songs being hated for their singers. It doesn't help that Serbs and Bosniaks have still close ties with each other in the music business, almost as if the war never happened.

* [[Gratuitous Rape]]: Employed by all sides with apparently the Serbs having the lion's share.

* [[It Got Worse]]

* [[Kent Brockman News]]: Every side (including the West) was guilty of this. The Serb media in particular to the point of [[Memetic Mutation]].

* [[La Résistance]]: Technically everyone (or no one, depending on how you look at it) since there wasn't a coherent international reaction to legitimize any government during the wars.

* [[Police Are Useless|U.N Peacekeepers Are Useless]]: Except when supplying warring factions with arms or protecting warlords.

* [[Patriotic Fervor]]: Media on all sides used this to get their respective population in a nationalistic frenzy.

* [[Rock Beats Laser]]: During Operation Allied Force, Serbia had used many unconventional tactics to match with a technologically advanced foe. Among things they used were burning hay to fool IR guided weapons, adding more reflective surfaces to farm equipment to fool radar and radar-guided weapons (such as Laser-Guided Bombs), then there was the incident of the F-117 being shot down. This was done by using a radar that operated at long wavelengths, allowing the aircraft to be detected for brief periods of time, but it was enough to shoot the aircraft down.

** Otherwise subverted, as the simple fact that the Serbians had to adopt such measures to compete with NATO shows.

* [[The Remnant]]: The Republika Srpska.

** The Republic of the Serbian Krajina (located in eastern Croatia) used to be this trope before it was eventually reabsorbed following the wars.

* [[The Siege]]: The Battle of Vukovar featured a force of around 2,200 Croatian infantry fighting against a much larger Serbian force that had armor and air support. Despite being horribly outmatched and surrounded, the Croats held out for 87 days and inflicted heavy casualties on their enemies in brutal street-to-street fighting.

** The Siege of Sarajevo holds the record as longest siege in modern history.

* [[War for Fun And Profit]]: The various paramilitary organizations and war profiteers like Arkan and Captain Dragan.

* [[Why We're Bummed Communism Fell]]

* [[The Woobie]]: Let's say that this is a conflict where every side sees themselves as the victims of the other.

* [[Would Not Shoot a Civilian]]: Brutally averted.

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:The Yugoslav Wars]]