storm - Hrvatski memorijalno-dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog ...

In addition to the comment that “Plan Z-4” was the “last chance” plan permitting
the Serbs to achieve the maximum because the West would never recognize the RSK”,
the Serbian press reported that many political factors in Belgrade were also behind the
rejection of the plan and “fuelling” the unrealistic ambitions of the so-called RSK. Th us,
Borisav Jović is reported to have said that “Krajina is militarily strong enough to resist
the possible attack of the Croatian Army”; according to Vojislav Šešelj, “Plan Z-4 was
totally unacceptable”. Even Zoran Đinđić thought that ”the fact that the Serbian people
in the RSK do not support the Plan suggests that we should not support it either”. In the
same group of comments the most consistent advocate of “Plan Z-4” was Vuk Drašković
(Miljenko Pešić, “Da li je propuštena istorijska šansa?”/Was a Historic Chance Missed?/;
Politika, 8 August 1995). He obviously understood it as an inevitable reality because his
position, publicly proclaimed some days before, that 85 percent of the territory of Bosnia
and Herzegovina should be made part of a confederation with Serbia and Montenegro,
showed that he had not given up his idea about a Greater Serbia: When I say that I accept
the Contact Group plan as a basis for future negotiations, I do not mean, on any account,
that 49% percent of Bosnia&Herzegovina ought to be Serbian, and the rest non-Serbian.
No way! Even if the peace plan said that 60% of Bosnia is Serbian, and the rest non-Serbian,
I would be against it! (“I dalje za veliku Srbiju”/On for Greater Serbia/; Intervju; 21 July
1995, pp. 12-13).
As opposed to the unargumented view that the exodus of the Serbs from Croatia
during Storm was caused by the “Milošević-Tuđman” agreement, in various analyses of
the operation military experts explain the evacuation of civilians from the RSK as a move
intended to prevent SVK defeat, i.e., a move prompted by conditions on the front and the
foreboding of total military defeat. Th us, according to the CIA analysis, evacuation was
ordered only in Knin, and not in Sector North, in order to allow the SVK 7 th Corps to
focus on fi ghting, and SVK commanders were forced to a choice - retreat or destruction
of their forces (Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Confl ict, 1990-
1995, Central Intelligence Agency, Offi ce of Russian and European Analysis, Washington,
DC 25505, May 2002, Chapter 89, pp. 371-372. 375).
According to the same analysis (Balkan Battlegrounds, Chapter 89, p. 374), “it is not
true that former US military offi cers trained the Croatian Army (and planned Storm),
or that NATO supported the Croatian off ensive, or that Milošević sent General Mrkšić
to the RSK in order to prepare the withdrawal of the Army and the population, and
that the SVK did not really fi ght but simply retreated as soon as the HV attacked, or
that Belgrade had sold out the RSK”, as SVK General M. Sekulić claims in his book.
On the contrary, the analysis emphasizes that “the HV’s stunning victory rested on a
combination of improvements made in force structure and doctrine before the operation
and the key penetration of Serbian positions that the HV and the ARBiH 5 th Corps were
able to open and exploit during the operation itself and that unraveled the SVK’s defence
system”. Th erefore, as pointed out, the success of Storm was based on improvements in
HV doctrine and force structure, implemented since 1993, because these professional
improvements enhanced the HV’s capacity in planning and organizing operations of
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