Yugoslavs in Arms: Guerrilla Tradition, Total Defence and the Ethnic Security Dilemma

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Notes

We are indebted to a number of researchers at Uppsala University for their reading of earlier drafts. In particular, we wish to thank Erik Melander and Magnus Öberg at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research and Kjell Magnusson at the Centre for Multiethnic Research. We also wish to thank Đorđe Stefanović of Toronto University and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

There is an ongoing debate about the character of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, in other words whether they should be described as civil wars or aggressions. While there was no aggression against Yugoslavia, the wars in Croatia and in Bosnia & Hercegovina, which was an internationally recognised sovereign state just prior to the outbreak of war, represent a specific combination of internal conflict and external aggression (Bougarel 1996b, pp. 49–50).

There are a variety of viewpoints as to how the violence directed against civilians in Bosnia & Hercegovina is to be defined, i.e. whether it is categorised as ‘ethnic cleansing’ or genocide. For the purpose of this essay, we do not engage in that normative discussion. Instead, we use the terms ‘mass killing’ in the generic sense, which includes all forms of mass violence from individual massacres to genocide. For more on the relationship between ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide, different views regarding the case of Bosnia & Hercegovina and the recent ruling at the International Court of Justice, see Burg and Shoup (2000, pp. 171–85), Kreß (2007), Mann (2005), Milanović (2007), Naimark (2001, pp. 3–4), Shabas (2007) and Scheffer (2007).

The concept of the security dilemma is not a new one, and was first used by John Hertz (1951). It was not until the 1990s, however, that the concept of the ethnic security dilemma became an object of scholarly research. For some of the most important contributions, see Melander (1999), Posen (1993) and Roe (1999, 2005).

Similarly, Michael Mann (2005, p. 7) has claimed that the decision to ethnically cleanse a population ‘typically emerges as a kind of Plan C, developed only after the first two responses to a perceived ethnic threat fail’.

As Benjamin Valentino (2004, p. 211) states, ‘the actions of the Guatemalan military as well as the efforts made by the Guatemalan leaders suggest that the brutality of the campaign is best understood as a calculated military response … against a mass-based guerrilla insurgency’.

It is important in this context to distinguish between motive, perception and rationalisation. It is true that the Nazi propaganda presented the Jews as a mortal threat to the Germanic race, but that was a way of rationalising a genocide that had other motives than to alleviate a security threat. For the ethnic security dilemma to exist, the weaker side has to be organised and have a capability to inflict military damage on the stronger group. The European Jews did not constitute such an organised group.

Vojislav Šešelj was one of Yugoslavia's experts on Marxist military doctrine. He later founded the extreme nationalist Serbian Radical Party (Srpska radikalna stranka) and currently stands trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for his activities during the war in Croatia and Bosnia & Hercegovina (Šešelj 1992, p. 82).

Claiming that peasant wars had never succeeded because they were based on the ‘roving rebel’ strategy, Mao argued that base areas were indispensable if a protracted guerrilla war was to succeed. The aim should be to create and link up these areas into larger territorial units, in which a local administration should be established in order to facilitate foraging and the creation of additional military units (Mao 1972, pp. 161, 166f, 173f).

Broz-Tito (1979, pp. 172ff.). Tito's strategy was similar to Mao's view of mobile warfare as preferable to positional warfare along fixed battle lines; cf. Mao (1972, p. 108).

Zbornik dokumenata i podataka o narodnooslobodilačkom ratu jugoslovenskih naroda [henceforth: Zbornik DNOR], vol. 1, doc. no. 159.

Zbornik dokumenata, ser. IV, vol. 1, doc. no. 1.

Zbornik dokumenata, ser. IV, vol. 1, doc. no. 51.

According to Tito (Broz-Tito 1975, p. 159), the općenarodna/opštenarodna odbrana/obrana was nothing other than the application of the NOP to the post-war conditions in Yugoslavia. Općenarodna is Croatian, opštenarodna is Serbian, odbrana is Serbian, obrana is Croatian.

Vukmanović-Tempo (1971, p. 106) stated that this material was placed in clandestine locations known only to the members of the units' headquarters.

Roberts (1986, p. 154) points out that it was not until 1958 that the idea of creating a Territorial Defence force first became part of the overall military doctrine.

Constitution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia 1974, art. 240 (Ustav SFRJ, Beograd 1974); Roberts (1986, p. 173).

The Yugoslav milicija was an equivalent to the police in the West. Despite its name, it did not correspond to the concept envisaged by Engels (workers–civilians that activate in times of emergency) as it was active during peacetime.

See also Ljubičić (1978, pp. 16, 18).

The municipality (opština/općina) was a basic socio-political community (društveno-politička zajednica) in the SFRY.

Every mjesna zajednica had its local council and was an administrative unit on whose territory resistance would be organised (Kovačevićet al. 1988).

One should note that the issue of defence responsibilities and structure was never entirely resolved and led to a number of opposing interpretations in the aftermath of Tito's death and particularly in the early 1990s. For further discussion see Milivojević (1988, pp. 27–33) and Hadžić (2002, pp. 102–23). See also 1969 National Defence Law, Articles 14, 51 and 52 (Službeni list SFRY, 8, 19 February 1969; Roberts 1986, pp. 179, 180).

In the event of an attack by a neighbouring country (a country of similar military size) the Yugoslav People's Army would assume most of the responsibility for defence, and the territorial forces would have an essentially auxiliary role (Roberts 1986, p. 174).

It was envisaged that the mountainous region of Bosnia & Hercegovina, where the Partisans successfully challenged the German and Ustaša forces in 1941–1945, would be maintained as a free area from which the rest of the country would be liberated (Vukotić1970, p. 173).

1969 National Defence Law, Article 74, Službeni list SFRY, no. 8, 19 February 1969.

Constitution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia 1974, art. 238 (Ustav SFRJ, Beograd 1974).

For a comparison between the Yugoslav, Swiss and Swedish concepts of Total Defence, see Roberts (1986).

Constitution of the SFRY, art. 240 (Ustav SFRJ, Beograd 1974).

From Section II of the Introductory Principles of the National Defence Law (Službeni list SFRY, 8, 19 February1969 and quoted in Roberts (1986, p. 172)).

Osamnaesta sjednica predsjedništva SKJ (1972), ‘Društveno-političke i društvene organizacije u opštenarodnoj odbrani’ (Javorović1977, p. 9).

Adam Roberts (1986, p. 217) mentions that the ONO ‘rests on fragile social and political foundations’, which ‘might be perversely misused for civil war’.

For example see Adžić (1990, p. 24).

In addition, the JNA was incapable of providing a political alternative that would be acceptable internally as well as by the international community (Hadžić2002, p. 195).

The growing alliance between Serbia's leaders and the JNA generals was based on the common interest of protection of some kind of Yugoslavia, common ideological interest, as well as on their national affiliation. For detailed description see Hadžić (2002, pp. 197–203). Even if a majority of the officer corps were Serbs by ethnicity, one has to remember that many of them were pan-Yugoslav rather than pro-Serbian in their political orientation. That is why Milošević never fully trusted the army and eventually even purged the officer corps of its pro-Yugoslav cadres (Edmunds 2005, p. 117).

On 25 January 1991 the Yugoslav television service broadcast a JNA-made documentary that showed a high ranking Croatian official, Martin Špegelj, organising illegal arms imports from Hungary to Croatia (Silber & Little 1996, p. 118).

For in-depth analyses of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and its connection to the ethnic security dilemma, see Burg and Shoup (2000), Cohen (1995) and Melander (1999).

For more on the fragmentation of the defence system and the arming of the ethnic groups in Bosnia & Hercegovina prior to the war, see Šiber (2001, pp. 15–36).

In his memoirs, Stjepan Šiber mentions how in 1992 mainly Croatian and Bosniak TO officers chose to join the Army of Bosnia & Hercegovina (Šiber 2001, pp. 39, 221–23).

During the Serbian takeover in Prijedor, for instance, the authorities began by disarming non-Serbian members of the TO (The Prijedor Report, UN S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. I), Part One, Section IV), available at: www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/anx/V.htm, accessed 25 May 2010.

A similar event occurred in central Bosnia in May 1992, when local Serbian forces refused to subordinate themselves to the Presidency of Bosnia & Hercegovina. In early June, the Bosniak-led TO of Zenica allegedly attacked and ‘cleansed’ the Serbian villages that were situated along the main road between Zenica and Sarajevo in a Bosniak-dominated area (Toholj 2000, pp. 513–16).