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You would be surprised how fast things played out in Yugoslavia. I clearly remember 15 years old me at 1989 when I become aware how expensive weapons really are

by vasac 7y ago

You would be surprised how fast things played out in Yugoslavia. I clearly remember 15 years old me at 1989 when I become aware how expensive weapons really are and how stupid is to spend such large amount of money on something that we obviously will never need. War started two years later, I got drafted couple of years later and ended using same weapons that I firmly believed we'll never need. You can argue that I was naive kid but war came as a big surprise to large percentage of adults too. From memoirs of various politicians it's clear that they had much better grasp on reality but for general public things moved from bad to worse really, really fast.

jacquesm 7y ago
Spot on. A friend in Poland, fairly high up in politics there visited Yugoslavia a few months before war broke out. Afterwards we spoke and he said he had absolutely no indication that anything was brewing at all. It was well known that Tito kept a tight lid on the factions, it took about 10 years until Croatia started to stir and another year for Slovenia to secede and that set the stage for the largest war on European soil in decades.
svara 7y ago
Thanks for your comment, it's really interesting and helpful to hear from someone who's actually seen this play out in real life. I suspect it's not you, but me who's sounding naive here. I do believe, though, that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies that makes violent conflict unlikely, and there's quite some empirical evidence for that, too. See Steven Pinker and so on. The history of Yugoslavia may therefore not generalize to today's Europe. Also, attitudes of people do matter, and they certainly do in a democracy. Many of the young men who went to fight in WW1 truly believed they were taking part in some great, noble, adventure of historic proportions. This world view just does not exist anymore, it seems about as close to my life as, say, the Spanish inquisition, and I'd wager that's true for most people in Europe today.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  You're not answering me, but for that it is worth I sincerely hope you are right and I'm wrong. And thank you for the exchange.
- vasac 7y ago
  > that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies Yeah, things are stable when economy is good (worked for Yugoslavia too) but what's going to happen in case of huge economic downturn like in the 30thies with millions out of work? Attitudes of people change as a reaction to the changes in their environment (real or perceived). And you don't need a majority, you just need a critical mass of people to stray and start chain of events that effects everyone. I certainly believe that market-oriented democracies are more stable than Yugoslavia, I'm just not sure how much more stable they are. Maybe I'm just to pessimistic after everything that happened in the last 30 years here.

by vasac 7y ago

jacquesm 7y ago

Spot on. A friend in Poland, fairly high up in politics there visited Yugoslavia a few months before war broke out. Afterwards we spoke and he said he had absolutely no indication that anything was brewing at all. It was well known that Tito kept a tight lid on the factions, it took about 10 years until Croatia started to stir and another year for Slovenia to secede and that set the stage for the largest war on European soil in decades.

svara 7y ago

Thanks for your comment, it's really interesting and helpful to hear from someone who's actually seen this play out in real life. I suspect it's not you, but me who's sounding naive here. I do believe, though, that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies that makes violent conflict unlikely, and there's quite some empirical evidence for that, too. See Steven Pinker and so on. The history of Yugoslavia may therefore not generalize to today's Europe. Also, attitudes of people do matter, and they certainly do in a democracy. Many of the young men who went to fight in WW1 truly believed they were taking part in some great, noble, adventure of historic proportions. This world view just does not exist anymore, it seems about as close to my life as, say, the Spanish inquisition, and I'd wager that's true for most people in Europe today.

jacquesm 7y ago
You're not answering me, but for that it is worth I sincerely hope you are right and I'm wrong. And thank you for the exchange.
vasac 7y ago
> that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies Yeah, things are stable when economy is good (worked for Yugoslavia too) but what's going to happen in case of huge economic downturn like in the 30thies with millions out of work? Attitudes of people change as a reaction to the changes in their environment (real or perceived). And you don't need a majority, you just need a critical mass of people to stray and start chain of events that effects everyone. I certainly believe that market-oriented democracies are more stable than Yugoslavia, I'm just not sure how much more stable they are. Maybe I'm just to pessimistic after everything that happened in the last 30 years here.