What if no Dayton Peace Accord?

[gral]

Been hearing again a few of Thompson's songs on YouTube, so the question came to mind. I must say that I find this unlikely, because the Yugoslavian Wars had turned(decisively, IMO) against the Serbs, but... What would have happened if for some reason, there was no Dayton Peace Accord in late 1995? What would have been the following moves by Serbs, Bosnians and Croats?

 

[Sixgun McGurk]

The war 'turned against the Serbs' because NATO repeatedly attacked the victorious Serbian Army with airstrikes. What the news doesn't like to tell people is that the Bosnians and Saudi terrorists started the war, attacking Serbia and Christians with terrorisim through the Islamicist political party SDA and its Saudi funded foriegn terrorists. The Muslims thought the Serbs weak and ripe for takeover. They miscalulated, lost badly and were paying the price of failure when Clinton acted on behalf of his Arab friends and bombed the Serb militia. Had there been no forced accord, I think the Russians would have pulled themselves together much faster than they did. There would have been a nuclear standoff. As it was the West turning on the Serbs caused a short civil war in Russia and ultimately put Putin in power to fight the much larger Islamic offensive against Russia itself.

The moves of a non-accord would be Serbia getting the bomb and maybe some ironic old R2's to carry them from sympathetic Russians and informing Germany that any further airstrikes launched from German territory could cost them dearly.

 

[WolfBear]

Been hearing again a few of Thompson's songs on YouTube, so the question came to mind. I must say that I find this unlikely, because the Yugoslavian Wars had turned(decisively, IMO) against the Serbs, but... What would have happened if for some reason, there was no Dayton Peace Accord in late 1995? What would have been the following moves by Serbs, Bosnians and Croats?

I suspect that it would have been a very slow, very long, and very exhausting battle and bloodbath up to the point that all of Republika Srpska would have been completely ethnically cleansed out of all of its Serbs just like the Serbian Krajina in Croatia previously was. So, the Serbs would have been even bigger losers than they were in real life, when they were essentially allowed to remain top dogs in Republika Srpska, albeit at the price of remaining within Bosnia.

 

[raharris1973]

this is a great question -

Here were the final front-lines, pre-ceasefire, and pre-Dayton Accords

Given the total success of the Croatian rampage into the Krajina, and the tightness of the tiny Brcko bottleneck in red, I assume the Serbian forces in the easy to cut off red northern Serbian pocket would have been completely defeated, sending the Serb civilian population to flight or prison camps under guard. The Croatian and Muslim forces would do the crushing. I think the Muslim Bosniak forces would probably widen their zones around Sarajevo, widening their contiguity with the main Bosnia pocket centered on Zenica. However, Serbian resistance could have much better prospects in the east, where the Montenegrin and Serbian border is just right across the the Drina river, and the Croatians, who were certainly stronger than the Bosniaks, have no incentive to be spending their troops or even expending fire support in that direction. The Serbs could go all in on an offensive against the eastern Bosnia Gorzade pocket, overrun it and ethnically cleanse the population and kill/imprison any UN/western forces who were in that 'safe zone'.

 

[WolfBear]

this is a great question -

Here were the final front-lines, pre-ceasefire, and pre-Dayton Accords

Given the total success of the Croatian rampage into the Krajina, and the tightness of the tiny Brcko bottleneck in red, I assume the Serbian forces in the easy to cut off red northern Serbian pocket would have been completely defeated, sending the Serb civilian population to flight or prison camps under guard. The Croatian and Muslim forces would do the crushing. I think the Muslim Bosniak forces would probably widen their zones around Sarajevo, widening their contiguity with the main Bosnia pocket centered on Zenica. However, Serbian resistance could have much better prospects in the east, where the Montenegrin and Serbian border is just right across the the Drina river, and the Croatians, who were certainly stronger than the Bosniaks, have no incentive to be spending their troops or even expending fire support in that direction. The Serbs could go all in on an offensive against the eastern Bosnia Gorzade pocket, overrun it and ethnically cleanse the population and kill/imprison any UN/western forces who were in that 'safe zone'.

You're on Historum, right, Rob? If so, you can ask user Maki there about this. He's a Serb from Bosnia.

 

[gral]

Given the total success of the Croatian rampage into the Krajina, and the tightness of the tiny Brcko bottleneck in red, I assume the Serbian forces in the easy to cut off red northern Serbian pocket would have been completely defeated, sending the Serb civilian population to flight or prison camps under guard. The Croatian and Muslim forces would do the crushing. I think the Muslim Bosniak forces would probably widen their zones around Sarajevo, widening their contiguity with the main Bosnia pocket centered on Zenica. However, Serbian resistance could have much better prospects in the east, where the Montenegrin and Serbian border is just right across the the Drina river, and the Croatians, who were certainly stronger than the Bosniaks, have no incentive to be spending their troops or even expending fire support in that direction. The Serbs could go all in on an offensive against the eastern Bosnia Gorzade pocket, overrun it and ethnically cleanse the population and kill/imprison any UN/western forces who were in that 'safe zone'.

Agree, especially with what was said about the Brcko Corridor. Would even say Serbia takes over the remains of OTL Eastern Republika Srpska. This timeline's Bosnia will be as bad as it is in OTL, but for different reasons.

 

[raharris1973]

Boo-hoo, OTL's Bosnia is sooo bad. It's just an awful broken place.

I dunno. It saw an end to mass killing and mass refugee movements in 1995, after three nasty years. It didn't have new mass killing or mass refugee movements in the 25+ years since. Compared to Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan, Burma, Congo, El Salvador, Venezuela..... that's positively paradisal. Have some perspective man. What standard are you holding countries to that it's worth living? If it's better than Bosnia something like a third or more of the countries of the world might as well pop a revolver in their mouth and blow their brains out right now.

As you can tell, I'm a low expectations, positive, glass half-full kind of guy

 

[gral]

Have some perspective man.

You seem to have assumed I think Bosnia is a shit-hole compared to the countries you have mentioned. It's not... but the potential for rapidly becoming one is there.

Actually, there's a place that could be compared to Bosnia in regards to ethnic tension: pre-1975 Lebanon. It did look stable(and more prosperous than current Bosnia is), but once stability was disrupted, it took almost 30 years for a peace of exhaustion to emerge. I do think something similar(although it would take less time for peace to come, one way or another) could happen to Bosnia, if something disrupts the balancing act the EU does there. I'm not even going into the Bosnian economy, such as it is.

To return to the subject, a Bosnia that goes (even more) down the ethnic cleaning way would have less ethnic trouble(maybe tensions would be between Bosniaks and Croats?), bur it would still have many of the same economic problems OTL Bosnia has.

 

[WolfBear]

To return to the subject, a Bosnia that goes (even more) down the ethnic cleaning way would have less ethnic trouble(maybe tensions would be between Bosniaks and Croats?), bur it would still have many of the same economic problems OTL Bosnia has.

Those can be solved with enough EU subsidies, assuming of course that corrupt politicians won't actually steal them for themselves, no?

 

[gral]

Those can be solved with enough EU subsidies, assuming of course that corrupt politicians won't actually steal them for themselves, no?

That's how they have been solving things in Bosnia since 1995, or so I'm told(and yes, it would be solved in the same way in such a timeline). But there seems to be some(not many, yet) cracks growing right now, so who knows what would happen in that timeline.

 

[WolfBear]

That's how they have been solving things in Bosnia since 1995, or so I'm told(and yes, it would be solved in the same way in such a timeline). But there seems to be some(not many, yet) cracks growing right now, so who knows what would happen in that timeline.

What do these cracks consist of?

 

[gral]

What do these cracks consist of?

There's been some recent reports of increased tension between the Serbian and Bosnian communities(not between the regional governments - my understanding is the Bosnian and Bosnian Serb governments try to ignore each other as much as possible). Whether this goes up or not remains to be seen.

 

[WolfBear]

There's been some recent reports of increased tension between the Serbian and Bosnian communities(not between the regional governments - my understanding is the Bosnian and Bosnian Serb governments try to ignore each other as much as possible). Whether this goes up or not remains to be seen.

I wonder if Russia will eventually try to play spoiler in Bosnia.

Agree, especially with what was said about the Brcko Corridor. Would even say Serbia takes over the remains of OTL Eastern Republika Srpska. This timeline's Bosnia will be as bad as it is in OTL, but for different reasons.

Does Serbia outright annex eastern Repulika Srpska?

 

[gral]

I wonder if Russia will eventually try to play spoiler in Bosnia.

I think that not now; it also depends on what the Serbians do.

Does Serbia outright annex eastern Repulika Srpska?

Assuming the Brcko Corridor gets cut and the Bosnians and Croats take over the western half of Republika Srpska, yes, I think Serbia would annex it.

 

[PsihoKekec]

What do these cracks consist of?

The biggest problem is the massive corruption, political leaders and their cronies are riding the gravy train by stealing from EU subsidies, with common people getting shafted, but to keep enough rubes voting for them and keep them on top of the gravy train, they feed the people nationalistic drivel.
In case of Republika Srpska, Dodik has practically cornered himself, by riding on nationalism he kept himself in power, but had to keep pushing, so that he wouldn't be replaced by someone even more radical, so now his own nationalistic policies are threatening to cut of the gravy stream that he relies upon, but if he backs down he will be removed by his voters, so he will need to thread a needle to keep the EU money going and I don't think he is skilled enough to do it.

Croats have it badly, they had to give up their autonomy with Dayton agreement, so Bosniak politicians regularly run roughshod over them. There were talks of reestablishing Herceg-Bosna in some form, but EU leaned on Zagreb to nip idea in the bud.

Bosniak politicians have it easiest, they rode out the big protests in 2014, they control the biggest portion of EU money and have default support of EU and USA.

I wonder if Russia will eventually try to play spoiler in Bosnia.

Unlikely, Russia is trying to work with Serbia and Serbia really doesn't want a Bosnian headache. While Vučić is trying not to offend the the nationalists too much, he made it clear he doesn't want to get Serbia entangled in the Bosnian mess.

 

[WolfBear]

The biggest problem is the massive corruption, political leaders and their cronies are riding the gravy train by stealing from EU subsidies, with common people getting shafted, but to keep enough rubes voting for them and keep them on top of the gravy train, they feed the people nationalistic drivel.
In case of Republika Srpska, Dodik has practically cornered himself, by riding on nationalism he kept himself in power, but had to keep pushing, so that he wouldn't be replaced by someone even more radical, so now his own nationalistic policies are threatening to cut of the gravy stream that he relies upon, but if he backs down he will be removed by his voters, so he will need to thread a needle to keep the EU money going and I don't think he is skilled enough to do it.

Croats have it badly, they had to give up their autonomy with Dayton agreement, so Bosniak politicians regularly run roughshod over them. There were talks of reestablishing Herceg-Bosna in some form, but EU leaned on Zagreb to nip idea in the bud.

Bosniak politicians have it easiest, they rode out the big protests in 2014, they control the biggest portion of EU money and have default support of EU and USA.



Unlikely, Russia is trying to work with Serbia and Serbia really doesn't want a Bosnian headache. While Vučić is trying not to offend the the nationalists too much, he made it clear he doesn't want to get Serbia entangled in the Bosnian mess.

Do you think that Vucic will ever recognize Kosovar independence?