yugoslavias implosion

too credulously Milošević’s assertions in the early 1990s that he was
struggling to maintain the unity and integrity of Yugoslavia—a goal
that resonated emotionally with some Europeans, who since the late
1960s had come to see Yugoslavia, which was embracing elements of
a market economy and distancing itself from the Soviet Union, as a
model of socialism with a human face.
At the same time, the West expected that the post-communist
societies would automatically embrace and implement democratic
values and standards, and that the issue of democratization was only
a question of time. Eventually, it became evident how different those
societies were—in spite of their external uniformity—and how much
the process of democratization would depend on the level of socioe-conomic
development, cultural and societal traditions, and particular
mind-sets. But in the first half of the 1990s, the West had yet to
learn that a long-standing dearth of real democracy cannot be remedied
overnight, especially not amid the institutional collapse and
disarray that accompanied the collapse of Yugoslavia and of communism
generally. The assumption that regional nationalists would
turn into moderates proved unrealistic—and the consequences of
international policies based on that assumption are still felt in Serbia.
A CLEAR CONSENSUS WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL
COMMUNITY IS A PRECONDITION FOR
EFFECTIVE, CONSISTENT ACTION
Members of the international community not only failed to
accurately interpret the causes and dynamics of the unfolding Yugoslav
conflict; they also failed for many years to reach agreement on
how to respond. This lack of consensus reflected in part the divergent
interests of leading players within Europe, in particular the
United Kingdom, France, and Germany. These differences quickly
came to the fore as Yugoslavia unraveled, preventing the adoption
of a consistent approach. Britain and France effectively appeased
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