yugoslavias implosion

Forces in Serbia and Montenegro were spared. Serbs in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina began to arm themselves in 1990 and 1991.
While the ypa was being reorganized, the Army was also
obstructing the social and political reforms necessary for modernization,
including modernization of the Army. The ypa sided with Serbia,
which was unprepared to embark upon a transition to a market
economy. The ypa was not interested in economic reforms because
it feared a return to capitalism, a redistribution of power in favor
of the republics, and the loss of its privileged status. It only paid lip
service to the economic reforms pursued by the Federal Executive
Council (siv). The Army had by that time considerably boosted its
independence by developing a network of its own production facilities.
195 Reform-oriented efforts were checked in 1985; a ypa faction
accused the government of placing undeveloped republics in an
inferior position by its market orientation and of pursuing a policy
aimed at draining the underdeveloped regions and Serbia of their
income to the benefit of Croatia and Slovenia.
Partly as a result of the increased influence of the ypa, a qualitative
change in Soviet-Yugoslav relations occurred during the 1980s. In
1985, the Soviet Union agreed to grant a license to Yugoslavia to manufacture
the latest Soviet tank—a first for a non–Warsaw Pact country.
This new relationship with the ussr affected the ypa’s equipment
modernization program and, in turn, strengthened pro-Soviet sentiments
within the ypa command. Yet fear of Soviet intervention
was still rife and the southeastern theatre saw an increase in military
maneuvers. The ussr grew increasingly insistent, especially in its
demands regarding a base in the Mediterranean, its obvious choice
being the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro.
195 This included a major military-industrial complex that aimed at both technological
and economic independence in the production of weapons and equipment . In 1990,
the military-inductrial sector consisted of 53 enterprises with a workforce of some
80,000 and 1,000 subcontractors . The arrangement brought about a cooperative
spirit as well as group interests and their safeguarding, Borba, March 5, 1990 .
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