The 1990s Balkans Wars w/ Thomas777 - Complete

on what the Croatians called the Homeland War. That was the war that approximately was caused by you know, Croatis declaration to pay in Croatia and Macedonia essentially seceding from the Yugoslavian political structure in nineteen ninety one, and the Serbian response to that, and the relationship of that to the situation then underway in the Soviet Union, and what Berlin, where Helmet Cole was still consler at the time, what Berlin's response was, how the world in turn reacted to

that and what the relationship of that constellation, effectors and those developments were on the situation in the Soviet Union, which was at that time very volatile. In the second episode, I think we should get into the history of the Independent State of Croatia. I've got a particular interest in Croatia for a few reasons, and they were especially for

such a small country. They played an important and very outsized role in the Access Alliance, Okay, but also it's key to understanding what happened not just in the Homeland War, but in the Bosnian War and later in the adjacent conflicts like that, you know, in Kosovo, where Croatia wasn't a combatant party, but Croatia and what Croatia did or did not do was instrumental in how events developed. And Croatia, it's inarguable this isn't some Slam and Serbian people or

anything of the sort. You know, Croatia is the most insinuated into the kind of Western conceptual paradigm. I mean, part of that is for very pragmatic strategic reasons. Part of that is for reasons of values and for lack of a better term, familiarity. But Croatia and particularly Tujiman, who was at the helm of Croatia as it achieved independence.

He was a he was in some ways a kind of perfect foil to almost in like manny Keian terms, so Melosovich and he was a very unique individual, and I think he was one of the most significant figures of the later twentieth century. So I want to today, I want to I want to get into the the conditions that led to the the Homeland War with a

focus on, you know, the Croatian internal situation. Next time, I think we should deal with the Second World War and the constellation of factors therein and the independent state

of Croatia. And then in the final episode, I think we should deal with the Serbian situation, like their internal situation and more of like a deep capacity and what the relationship of that is to what I believe was you know, the kind of the kind of final like poisoning of relations between you know, the United States and the Russian Federation was when America assaulted Serbia nineteen ninety

nine without provocation. So that's the way I think it should break down, if that's agreeable to both you and subscribers. But there's a lot here, so bear with me, and there's terms that I'll do my best to clarify as we go, But go ahead, it all sounds good to me. Okay, No, great, There's terms that I will define as we go, but aren't going to be fully fleshed out until we get into the deep dive context of you know, there the significance of these of these things. So bear that in

mind too. I will I will come back to anything that seems ambiguous, and I'm aware that a lot of the seams ambiguous to the uninitiated. The key to understanding how things developed in the way Yugoslavia broke apart, particularly what guided decision making in the Croatian Control Group around tu Jaman, You've got to understand what was underway vis are the Bush forty one administration and why they were so zealously behind Gorbachev and Chevin Narze, who was a

Grbachev's you know, top advisor. He was kind of the

man behind Perastrika in conceptual and policy terms. There was this basic concord between you know, Bush and James Baker and uh people within you know Bush and Baker's orbit, like Brent Scowcroft, you know, contra the team b Coterie kind of best exemplified by people like were most purely exemplified by people like Cheney, you know, who wanted who wanted who wanted the Soviet Union dismantled and and and kind of you know laid prostrate and the most you know,

and the and the most complete and punitive way possible. Bush and Bakers. Uh kind of absolute imperative was that they wanted to preserve the Soviet structure, not its internal constitution, but it's basic structure. It's like kind of you know, essentially administrated government, mental organizational modality until full disarmament had

benefit accomplished. Okay, you know, total nuclear disarmament, a drawing down of Soviet conventional forces, you know, to something minuscule, you know, to to to levels of some kind of like internal you know, constabulary element. And only then would there be discussion about, you know, moving forward, like how the Soviet Union would be structured or whether it would

continue to exist at all. You know, it ending up with you know, tanks Uh in a in red Square and Yeltson literally banning the Communist Party, declaring himself President of the New Russian Federation and then holding what I'm on to do you know, like an add doct plebiscite that was totally at odds with what the Bush administration wanted to develop, Okay, and why that became possible in an indirect but essential way was impacted by what happened

in Yugoslavia. And for people wh think I'm overemphasizing this, there's a fascinating memo that circulated the Department of State. I mean, all the minutes of any like official meeting between the Secretary of State and his Soviet counterpart or the or the Soviet chief executive would obviously, you know, be widely circulated. May eleventh of eighty nine, Gorbachev met

with Baker and Chevin Nards. It was present to the topic of discussion was, uh, was force levels in Europe with a particular focus on nuclear weapons, and Garbage Off initiated the conversation by putting it to Baker, I know, because we know, you know through our intelligence apparatus that you're planning to deploy you know, a missile platform in the nineteen nineties that's analogous to the then very feared you know, Soviet SS twenty three, and uh, you know

this is a problem you know it, uh, Grocha is basically like I, you know, I'm not concerned with how this looks on the perspective of a reality, but obviously we need some kind of guarantee from you that you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna You're not gonna pursue these hyper advanced like next generation like strategic nuclear weapons platforms. We need to guarantee from you that that's not going to happen, you know, before we go any further here.

Gorrichoff further said that he and Warsaw he and his warsaw Peck counterparts were prepared to conduct negotiations on a total draw down tactical nuclear forces, you know, just outright and uh, as well as the abolition of the nuclear capability of you know, quote du dual purpose platforms primarily cruise missiles, you know, basically put placing them beyond use,

as far as being married the nuclear warheads. Okay, if all this seems very esoteric, but that's my whole point, okay, is that you know, this was this was the issue, the only issue really in the minds of Bush and Baker, you know. In Bush forty one, he was described by Conda Leeza Reyes is constantly cautious. I think that's that's the wrong way to characterize it. Calculating, yes, you know,

incredibly thorough, Yes, but uh Bush was thinking systemically. And that's exactly like, that's exactly the the the model that Nixon had for bringing about, you know, the the end of UH Soviet hard power, you know, by negotiated means, you know. And I I invoked that because I don't I don't think anybody could say that Nixon was cautious. Okay, the UH or chaf Further, the remainder of the discussion

is reflected in the minutes memorializing the memo. He basically click ticks off a list of concession as the Soviets have made. You know, they would draw on over five

hundred uh tactical nuclear munitions from the European theater. If they could expect reciprocity from NATO, they they they'd be willing to withdraw all nuclear forces, tactical nuclear forces, more self packed territory between that day in nineteen ninety one, you know, and obviously tactical nuclear weapons to the Soviets were uh, this was this was this was within this

was this was literally a local threat, you know. I mean that's why if there seems to be a strange imbalance and you know, kind of the the types of forces that are emphasized, I mean, that's that that should be.

I mean, obviously people have basically understand a geography anybody who's bothering to listen to these talks that we have, but people might not be familiar with, you know, the strategic and tactical distinction is applied to weapons platforms like that's that's why these battlefield nuclear weapons are of such

a concern to Moscow, Like then is now okay? Because deployed in the European theater that that's got they've got tremendous destructive power, and that that has implications for you know, uh, for first strike as well as myriad other things the

second uh interestingly too. Gorbichoff says he's convinced that there's a special working group within the National Security Council as well as the intelligence community in Washington that's working to discredit Pair of Strike up and that Robert Gate is probably behind this effort and this needs to be openly discussed less you know, public opinion, you know, converge around this kind of narrative, and as as I've indicated before, like CIA at this point was really something of a joke,

although they did still have some power to impact perception and particularly through public diplomacy efforts. And Gorbacheff I believe is absolutely right. Like CI, at that point, Aldridge Aims had sold out every human asset they had behind the Iron curtain, all of whom, of course, had been unceremoniously executed by KGB and gru So CIA was not just flying blind, but you know, them pretending that it's forever

nineteen sixty. I mean that they that was their raison detra you know, so grow Withrow's basically going down the list of things that can potentially derail this sort of disarmam and Concord and UH Bakers you know, playing it close to the chest, but obviously warming up to these, to these, to these do these efforts by Moscow, and you know he's he guarantees UH an elimination of you know, any kind of tactically symmetry as regardless tactical forces, and

being in Europe, you know, immediately be followed up by you know, a further draw down in total nuclear forces and UH the emphasis uh by Baker as well as you know what's emerging from the White House and visa via Bush's uh contentious dealings with Poland and some of the other Warsaw Pact satellites, the opposition elements in these states, you know, Uh, Bush is essentially insisting on patients and you know, people particularly like Valenca, who despised allow this

process to work, and that negotiation has to come from the top down, meaning uh, you know, agreements between Moscow and and and Washington, and only then, you know, can we talk about the future of the satellite states and transition to you know, normalized government outside of you know, the the captives oviate orbit. So obviously we'll move on here. But this is obviously like this was obviously an extraordinarily

delicate minuet. Even if there was general stability in the Balkan theater and other potential kind of flashpoint locales, you know it, Uh, it would require a real commitment probably over two administrations on you know, on on on the American side, who were you know, fully committed to the program and as and and and reciprocally in Moscow. It would have required I mean, garbage off ended up being

very long lived. But it would have required Grbachoff retaining his mandate probably for the subsequent decade, and if not he himself, you know, uh, a protege who could be expected to essentially carry out exactly the policy program outlined by Shepard Nardsen and you know, kind of the Perastrika concepts.

What was happening in Yugoslavia at this time. Yugoslavia was outside of the warsawf HAAG orbit you know, they they and they uh they were treated after the cruise, chief thought led to the re establishment of of of of cordial relations with Yugoslavia, and Tito himself and Moscow always treated Yugoslavia as part of the socialist community of Nations and there was complex interdependence in the form of UH common form and comic con But Ugoslavia stood, you know,

as AH as a genuine neutral in the Cold War.

that you know, say, like Poland and Czechoslovakia wasn't. But I mean they absolutely, you know, they absolutely were practicing state socialism and.

in Hungary after nineteen fifty six. I mean a lot of this stuff was uh, a lot of stuff was like cosmetic and also like it you could you could carry on autonomously within certain parameters in the Yugoslavian system, but if you took on a political if you took on a political commitment like you'd be crushed by the secret police, you know, just like you would anywhere else by in the wall. I mean, that's that's the that's

that's the key takeaway. And uh, Tito was a real Communist in my opinion, you know, I mean he in order to the whole idea of a Yugoslavia is is uh is was was doomed from inception for all kinds of reasons. But the idea was the most turtle of you of Tito in terms of the geostrategic mind. An impulse is that he realized that the United States and the Soviet Union both had to be kept out or you know, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, would would would would

they would? They would stand together or fall together amidst the the Cold War dynamic. And we'll get into the kind of basic suspicion of Serbs and Croats to UH, inter governmental organizations, including I might add the Catholic Church, despite the fact, I mean croats and work are like a Catholic vanguard, but they're not. They were always they were always suspicious of of you know, UH, any kind of vaticant effort to directly impact their politics and the

internal situation they're in, which is interesting. But there's a strong heritage of that and the Balkans, and we'll get into the Bosniaks of people too. I'm not leaving them out. They're they're hugely important. Uh but that but for our purposes right now, they kind of don't feature center stage. But May thirteenth, nineteen ninety that was the infamous that's something the football game that I'm talking about soccer, not

the pigskin game obviously. That's in the soccer match at the Zagreb at the Maximir Stadium between Zagreb Dynamo and Belgrade Red Star, which are like too like very they're they're kind of like Ranger and Celtic, Okay, like they're the Rangers and Celtic, like they're you know, like the old firm rivalry, like very nationalistic, very much a stand

in for a you know, ethno sectarian nationalism. The game erupted into like this general like melee between like cross and Serbians as well as the police and at uh like the the level of violence, it was clear that something was afoot, that that this was just typical like football pitch, you know, dust up kind of stuff, and sure enough I put it an underway. All that preceding Spring was the new Croatian Parliament had been convening. They formally held its first session, held the first session on

May thirtieth of nineteen ninety. But President to Jamon, and we'll get into who he was in a minute, he formally announced the manifesto for a new Croatian Constitution and an entire like multitude literally of political, economic and social changes, most of most concern to non Croats. The extent that this constitution outline to what extent minority rights would be guaranteed, I mean mainly for Serbs. The relationship between Croats and Bosniax is complicated. We'll get into that as we proceed

with the series. But local Serb politicians just opposed this outright, you know, they said it's a it's a manifesto for ethnic cleansing with someone ironic if you consider the source. It's important understand Tujeman was not a bigot. I mean, he was a He was a He was a racial patriot, I believe, despite his background, and we'll get into that in a minute, I believe he was something of a national socialist, but he he was not a bigot. His view of a his view of democracy, his view of

representative government was basically like the Schmidtian view. You know that democracy is the expressed will of the demos. It will always there. It represents domination by you know, one cohesive like ethnic, sectarian or racial group. You know, it's the exclusion of the expression of other cultures in a full and complete way. Okay, and in a place like the Balkans, that's an arguable if one is prone to

kind of universalist conceits otherwise. For context, as of nineteen ninety, Cross represented seventy eight point one percent and Serbs self identified. I think Serbs represented twelve just word, twelve percent of the total population. But the Serbs held a disapportionate number of official posts closed somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent. And these these these posts were loaded in the police and military.

And this is something that had been underway for a couple of decades, you know, Serbians becoming insinuated into the security element as well as uh adjacent institutions of the party apparatus. You know, it was the after after the death of the Communist Party in in Croatia and uh to uh a striking degree in Bosnia. Hear Segovina as well. You know, the uh, the like the Yugoslavian security apparatus was becoming a like like a Serbian institution, you know.

And this, uh, this more than anything, kind of prompted public reception in Croatia among cross at their back was against the wall because it's not, uh, it's not the Croati at this time had its own army or something. The only army was the Yugoslav National Army like the j and A, And immediately after the Slovenians also held a parliamentary election they held there's in April in nineteen ninety, you know, and then the cross as we just mentioned

in nineteen ninety. In May nineteen ninety, the j and A, the Yugoslav National Army, they announced an end to the

Tito era adoption of general People's Defense. That what general People's Defense in practice meant was that each discreet republic within Yugoslavia maintained a territorial defense force that basically, you know, at absence like a general mobilization, knowing to total war, you know, the local territorial defense would be responsible for you know, responding to emergency situations as well as acting in in you know, the kind of constabulary role for

policing the internal situation, an event of a crisis. This was this was this was just abolished and henceforth it would be replaced by essentially directed system of defense you know UH from the J and A's UH General Staff, which again was what was was re pradical purposes, you know, like a Serbian element. The Slovenians acted rapidly to try and retain control over their over their territorial element. The Croatians played it very cool, which is fascinating, and people

have a couple of ideas about that. The UH, the weapon stockpiles of the Territorial Defense Force element in Croad majority regions were seized by the us Lav National Army and it was UH, Serbia's representative in the Federal Presidency

of Yugoslavia, which was then still let theoretically intact. He claimed that this action came basically at the demand of Serbia because again, you know, they were claiming that, you know, we represent all you know, Yugoslavians, but the Serbian minority is under direct you know, like mortal physical threat in newly independent Croatia, which according to Belgrade was a was was it was a fascist state. So Tujman realized he

had to proceed carefully. A lot of people believe Tujman was in We'll get into his background a minute, but he was. He was an inn eellectual. He was a military officer, but he was he was kind of the constant East Block intellectual. People think he was basically playing

like a master chess game. And he realized, uh that owing to you know, the good offices with with with Germany and particularly Cole, as well as America's need h you know, kind of control the situation without simply seating responsibility for any intervention to the Russians, which was unthinkable.

That basically, like if he allowed the Serbs to continue to you know, basically kind of outrage world opinion by carrying out what was by all appearances kind of like nakedly like uh ethno sectarian program of oppression against all

attempts at secession and self determination. That either there'd be direct intervention by some combination of the U N and the EU backed up by natal force of arms, or that the United States and Germany would allow you know, weapons to stream in and essentially give the Cross them they needed UH to win when push came to shove, and ultimately four years later that's exactly what happened, and UH, the Cross you know, launched this mass assault operations storm

against the Serbian U slav National Army and like quite literally like liberating Croatia. And we'll get into that in later episodes. But I basically accept that view of two Jeman, which is why, as I suggested, has we commenced this discussion. He's you know, worthy of the praise that he receives. And and then more who was too Juman. He was born on May fourteenth, nineteen twenty two. He died in

December of nineteen ninety nine. It's an arguable that he played he played the pivotal role in the in the creation of like the modern Croatian state, the contemporary state. It uh his vision of Croatia. It was. He didn't run from the it's it's it's passed as a fascist state, a national socialist state. He didn't even particularly deemphasize it.

His background, he'd he'd fought with the Partisans against the Ustasia, which is interesting in art, motivated probably by the fact that his brother had been murdered by the Eustasha, but he could not be called an anti fascist, and in the thirty years preceding the Homeland War he was periodically

imprisoned for nationalist activities. He wrote a History from the Croatian Perspective of World War Two, whereby he essentially said that the Croatians of the people had to work within the communist paradigm in order to achieve self determination, and that was his motivation for joining the Partisans, and in other men's cases, especially after the wall came down, that would seem laughable, and to Jamon's case, it's entirely credible, owing to you know, the way he lived his life

and and frankly the kind of regime that he created when he came to the Helm he Uh. It's important note too that Tito was a crawat, and even then, uh, there was a strong uh, there was a Serbian plurality, if not across party offices, you know, within the vanguardist elements as well as you know, in the security apparatus that followed. So it's a crawat who a crowd who was a partisan during the war years and then later

became an arch nationalist. The way to look at that is you can't look at that the way you would in some in some in some national narratives. It's not it's not a matter of what's changing, changing their ats according to politic, according to historical currents. There is an internal logic there. You know, Convolutism might seem outside of

the Balkan situation. But revisionists who write about the Balkans, and there are some, they made the point that it's incredibly misguided and just kind of like a I mean, just kind of like a midw conceit to paint tu Jaman and Melosovich's, you know, as these kind of twin like Balkan dictators. They were totally different kinds of people. They were different generations. You know, they were born, you know, over twenty years apart. Melosovich was the consummate kind of

company man communist. Interestingly, he was the man the State department favored for a kind of perastrika in Yugoslavia to be overseen. And you know, uh, when I was a wating to what the odds of this discussion with in my opinion, the Bulgan situation kind of dooming the Bush

Baker Gorba show off. Shepherd nards a concord was when, as I think we discussed before the UH Tujmon met with Helmet Cole on October seventh, nineteen ninety one, and raw m the Cole met on October seventh with UH Separovich, with Tujiman's foreign minister, and he reiterated and knowing certain terms that you know, as long as Croatia like abides, you know, the ceasefire that was then periodically in place and you know, continues to hold, you know, regular elections

that you know, beyond mere cosmetic affairs that UH you know, the end that the newly independent Croatia has Germany's full support. Within the notes of the meeting is fastening. Scepparovic says, you know, we were painted as we're painted as national socialist by the UH American world press. We we we fear this is gonna harm our cause, like Cole says, like,

don't worry about that. You know, when when push comes to shove, basically l L, I'm gonna I'm gonna reform Washington that this issue is non negotiable, you know, so Cole and of course UH Belgrade went nuts and claimed that UH they they they claim that tou Jaman and Cole were conspiring to develop a fourth Reich, that you know, NATO was supporting UH, a Nazi client state of Germany in Croatia and UH the You know that the response from Zagreb was that, you know, we've abided every UN

resolution that has been assigned to us in order to mitigate hostilities. We are under attack. We want nothing more than self determination. You know, we're at risk of ceasing to exist at a people, as a people based on our unwillingness to abide communist tyranny. You know, isn't that what the American way is all about? And what the NATO enterprise was was UH was tailed and maintained to guarantee.

And Yelton's people in Moscow obviously were listening, as were well less his people in Poland, I mean, as was UH, as was you know, all these young Turks throughout the UH, throughout the East Bloc, and they were saying, you know, who the hell is Bush to tell the Russians that they've just got to tolerate, you know, they've got to They've got to tolerate a communist tyranny for the sake of stability. You know, this is uh, this is egregious.

You're telling people they've got to willfully avail themselves as captives to communism or something even worse and refrain from pursuing self determination. You know, simply, uh, it's simply simply to abide you know, some kind of you know, some kind of vision that allows Gorbachev and Hivin Nards to make make heroes of themselves and possibly enriched themselves exponentially, you know, in pursuit of this kind of a policy of h of non action.

like the independent State of Croatia was back. It's one thing to uh it's one it's fun thing to have. It's one thing to to to to repurpose Ukraine as like a human torpedo and install like a clown, like a literal clown like Zelenski at the helm and then like watch it destroy itself. You know, while you allow these why why well, while you allow them to like

dress up and play Nazi, that's one thing. Is another thing to have, like an actual national socialist state that's flying the standard of uh that that that Pavlich's NDH did and having a you know, helmet cole like standing literally arm in arm with like the president of the newly independent Croatia as a totally are in ball game and selling that. Selling that in Washington, you know, as part of a neo contage program was not an easy sell.

What did going to carry the day m p r I, which was a precursor to Blackwater and a lot more effective in my opinion, there were much more other tradition of outfits like executive outcomes that people are familiar with that m p r I was Military Products and Resources Incorporated. They were they were a PMC outfit that was very much responsible for getting the Cross and fighting shape in terms of material and training the Cross. There were very

martial people and UH that's a facilitated operations storm. But it's a totally different world. And like the UH, the Croats were like an underdog people. It's like, yeah, they had Germany behind them, Like yeah, I'm like American media basically cast them as like the good guys. But they also if you go to UH, you know like ed Vashim, like they got au, they got a whole, they got a whole exhibit like permon an exhibit on like you know,

the crimes of the Ustasha. You know, they're not that's wonder if that's so many neo cons that clicked up with like Serge Trifkovic, whoite met and he doesn't like me very much. But that's why that's why during like the height of UH the height of like war on

terror bullshit. Yeah, these like crazy like Laura Lumer type Zionists saying like see, like we we stay with the Syrups because they're victims the Holocaust too, and like they're they're they're also fighting Islam like that that's their big thing, you know, So like Krawats are not people who they kind of the kind of in Gio macro verse likes to help. Okay, that's the short answer. We can get

more into that in a subsequent episode. It'll become particularly relevant as we get into Operations Storm and kind of like the how that developed, and there's the planning and execution as well as you know, kind of the order of battle for the Rubber met the road. But you know, the uh, what was obviously the forefront of embody's mind was what would Croatia's treatment of minorities be? You know,

uh two junt Finesse did very well. Separovich openly stated that, uh there that the Zagreb government and the Futmont government they have actually no problem with you know, an opening hearing at the Hague conference that was then looming for the winter time, or participating representatives of you know, all all of of you know, the three ethnic groups, you know, Cross servant Bosniak, he could you know, get some declaration or rights from this zagarea government that would be guaranteed

by you know, like you had observers or whatever like upon sensation of hostilities. You know, Uh, the true problem, the truth throw on the side of the server became the Albanians and Kosovo. But that's we're not there yet. But the point is, like at least more than superficially, the Cross said, like, look, we we would be willing to accept some international controls in terms of settlement of the Serbian minority, and we will definitely allow observers on

the ground. We've got an to hide here. But again, you know, Tujman was unwilling to compromise in his statement that self determination involves the dominance of you know, homogeneous culture and its ability to get guarantee that culture's posterity and the practice of that culture by the people constitute it. And this is absolute that the self determination is, you know, you will not force us into some multi ethnic state

under Serbian dominion. You know, we will not become a minority in our own country again, and this is not negotiable. And that was very baldy. But again it uh, you know,

the this was exactly the right tactic to take. And again some would say tu Jaman gambled by holding back the way that he did and kind of letting the war be fought in Bosnia, while like the Cross, you know, we're able to kind of build political cache by appearing to you know, be the party that was most compliant, you know, with you know, law and order as as

as a devised by NATO and the Hague. Like cynical as that might have been, it was a master stroke and tu Jaman could not have known that Operations Storm would develop way that it did. The subtext of the cole Separovic meeting is is Coal is telling him You're going to have the weapons you need to to win

the homeland war when the time comes. Okay. That's if you know what to look for in analyzing these kinds of this kind of language and placing it in context of uh, you know, the parties and what brings them to the table. I think that can't be disputed. So that's it's basically what we think of as you know,

the Balkan Wars like in our lifetime. That's what kicked off the conflict cycle and again autumn of ninety one, like the Cross, the first UH like real kind of conventional engagement was the siege of the Jillivar Barracks, whereby the jy and A was UH aiming to continue their campaign to disarmament against the Cross in Croatia proper what was to become Croatia proper, and Toujman eventually called off after after approximately fourteen days, he called off the siege

and allowed the j and A to seize what they had come to take. Stood down or remained of a territorial forces adopted a purely kind of defensive posture, and UH. Meanwhile, UH took the waging the active conflict by proxy in Bosnia, which again was a UH was a political and strategic

master stroke. Did that prolong the suffering of people? I mean, what happened in Bosnia is horrible, like beyond belief, But I mean Toujman did what he had to do to win the war, okay, and UH if with within the bound of rationality of that, like Belgrade had to be defeated. You know, I know that sounds like callous to but I mean the fact is it's you know, yeah, I mean subjecting, subjecting people in the Bosnian battle space, including Croats obviously, you know, to those guys of horrors for

the greater good. I mean that that's those those are the kinds of decisions that that that real statesmen, you know, like warranty statesmen have to make, and it was the right call. I'm not trying to upset people. I'm not like at all. I'm speaking in in terms of you know, strategic matters, not moral ones, and uh, I'm not Uh, I've got a lot of respect for the Serbian people. I'm certainly not down on them or bashing them or anything, and we will give them like their fear hearing too,

like in the concluding episode. But I think, uh, I'm frankly getting kind of tired. I don't know, you any hour that was kind of dense, So I don't want to get into the second. What I'm gonna get into next is kind of is like equally dense, and we'll be here in anunder two hours that I get into it now. So I want to. I want to say it because it basically ties together too Jmud regime as a legacy government of poplished and I want to drop.

I want to drop the context of what the public regime was as it existed from five in the second episode. I don't want to get into it now and then just like have to stop in ten minutes.

so be looking for that. You can always find me on substack at real Thomas seven seven seven at substick dot com. I've been dropping as much fresh content there as I can, including our dear friend Jay Burden has been transcribing our just our dialogues here, which is great. He's a real prince, and I've been uploading those. I've been uploading new pod content audio. So that's there. You can find on my website. It's Thomas seven seven seven dot com number seven h M S seven seven seven

dot com. You can find me on x at capitol R E A L underscore number seven h O A S seven seven seven. I'm also on Instagram. I can never remember. Just search Thomas seven seven seven on Instagram and you'll find me just like at number seven h O A S seven seven seven. And yeah, let's let's reconvene later this week, man, and it will continue on the Balkan Wars. We're gonna do it, all right, thank you, Yeah, thank you. Man.

which was a fool's errand from inception. But this didn't originate with the Partisans or with you know, the the It didn't originate in the minds of the same kinds of people who you know, conspired with the cynics like Venice and Czechoslovakia. You know, it was it, there was, there was deep precedent for it, not into it had no there was no organic support for it among the constituent populations, but among various coteries and categories of elites

like this is an ongoing effort. So that's number one. Number two, there's many, many misconceptions about the Independent State of Croatia as it existed from Many forty one to forty five. For a small country, it had a tremendously outsized impact. It was incredibly committed to the acts As cause, and a lot of people claim otherwise by conflating support for the Usta Show regime with support for the x

IS cause and Adol Hitler, and that's misguided. But also people mischaracterize the relationship of Proosa as a people to the Usta Shaw and the Eustasha movement was a Bosnian crad movement at base, and discussing the view of the Ustasha in Croatia proper, it's almost like it's an impertinentalogy. But it's almost like it's almost like polling people like in England or like UH London about how they feel about like loyalism in Northern Ireland. You know, like you're

you're remote from the conflict zone. And yes, I mean cross were really proud people, they're really like aware of this situation contra the civilization of other I'm speaking within the terms of the conflict in amics present and not making some value judgment or suggesting anything in absolute terms about the populations under discussion. But in the Bosnia is literally like a powder keg of of ethno sectarian conflict dynamics.

So one's got understand the emergence of the Ustasha as well as the emergence of of the the Chetnik movement as as a as a as A as a Bosnian phenomenon very much. You know, on the Chetnik side, just complexities and ambitions that you know kind of transcended and

superseded that. But if you're talking about kind of the core based of organic radical support for these UH, for these for these ethnic UH political programs and in ideological crusades, you know, the the dynamics of Bosnia Herzegovina are essential understanding it. So today we're gonna get into that stuff, and then then that and then then the next episode. I think, uh, you know, we'll get into the we'll get into the Homeland war itself and kind of how

it resolved and with the implications where they're in. There's a lot here. If we start going too long, we might drag this out into another episode. But we've not been informed yet that we're boring people when we go longer than expected, at least, I mean, I haven't gotten any feedback in the regard, and I assume if that was underway, you you wouldn't continue to you know, be so kind as to host me.

of like cliche discussion about it, or cliche discussion. The Balkans doesn't outside significance, particularly particularly into strategic terms, just owing to like owing to situatedness, like literal geography, and in the case of Germany, a hostile Balkans or even in neutral Balkans, whereby the Germans for denied the ability to deploy, specifically to reinforce Hungary and to you know, uh, create any kind of defense and depth or alternatively, you know,

traverse the frontiers of Hungary, Romania and creation Balghanichlovina proper if they were if they were denied the ability to do that, that would essentially like cut Europe in half in operational terms. And obviously, as it became clear that the Soviet Union was Germany's primary adversary and really the only the only path to victory in World War Two was was the defeat of the Soviet Union. Okay, I mean this was this was emergent long before Barbarossa kicked off. Okay.

So that's the key to understanding the situation the Balkans, and that endures to this day. Okay, I mean, that's that doesn't change. Secondly, the kind of unique the unique affinity that great powers have for the constituent populations there.

It creates, it creates dynamics that have a unique with escalation, you know, like as we talked about it a little bit more in today, the Craoats and the Germans, especially uh Austrians and Bavarians, but also I mean even the you know, even Slavians and and and the and the Prussian Officer UH Corps such that it still existed, you know, and in the nineteen thirties and forties, there's a basic affinity between Germany and Croatia, you know, and that was

essential understanding what Helmet col did in nineteen ninety one. So I mean that endoors to the state too, and the Russians as a people, well, they've got a they've got a unique affinity for the Serbs. Okay, And I'm

oversimplifying a bit for this sake of conceptual clarity. But also, you know, we've talked a little bit about the kind of Islamic awakening or revival of the late twentieth century and it's and its significance as an essential one of many essential causes and and kind of bringing down the U the Warsaw pack structure and kind of like the Stalnist model of regime model Bosnia was very much gram zero.

Bosniaks became very radicalized and what became al Qaeda was very active there and kind of bringing Bosniac people like back into the Islamic fold. Okay, and Bosniaks have something of a complicated relationship to Islam, but traditionally, you know, they were very much adjacent and integrated into into into

the Ottoman structure. Okay, So these are not this is not just something like middling ethnic conflict whereby the subject populations you know, aren't viewed as are aren't aren't viewed as holding any inherent significance historical or otherwise, save for you know, the pragmatic business of attempting to you know, resolve and enduring conflicts in such a way that you know, great powers can at least work with whoever emerges triumphant.

You know, it's very very deep affinities here of you basically pre rational nature, a lot of which date to the Thirty Years War, but even that precede, you know, that's important to them, that's important to keep in mind. And then jump around a bit here. But the Bulkan

theater of World War two was incredibly brutal. It was almost like that it was almost like a verymont experience like Vietnam type experience, you know, the uh the Chetniks led by uh Asa Mahalovich kind of cloak really called the Hell of Its Chetnicks, because there's various Chetnik factions party of the conflict and in various kind of like offshoots with the main sort of chet Nick movement. First and foremost, they were fighting for the restoration the monarchy.

The monarchy as we got into, like the like the Yugoslav monarchy as we got into in our World War One series, had become for all practical purposes like a like you know, like a monarchy that was what was was was very much captivated by Serbian interests. Okay, the chet Nicks. The Chetnicks were found in sulant situations somewhat somewhat like Shankai checks forces did in their own theater. The primary ops of the Ustasha and the Vermoncht at

critical moments or the Chetnicks like not the Partisans. The Partisans would often avoid engaging the Verhrmacht when possible, you know, unless it was critical for them to contest an objective. And this led to very high Chetnik body counts, and you know, it allowed Tito to spare is arguably is

kind of like a best cadres. Okay. There was also complexities where you know, there are some Chetniks who were like somewhat adjacent almost allied with the Italians, and the Italians are kind of trying to play everybody off against each other. There was some Chetniks who ultimately defected in real terms, you know, to the ax Aside, and one

of whom uh actually received the Knight's Cross. So, I mean, it's incredibly it was a mess, you know, But the degree to which two Hitler was forced to kind of abide all all these competing interests and all these conspiratorial designs of other essential allies, you know, whether you're talking about the Romania's, the Hungarians or like all Ducha himself. That's key understanding why Ante Pavolich became the the you know, the the chief executive of of the Independent State of Croatia.

Because Pavlich was a very very unusual guy, as we'll see in a minute, and as I've emphasized before, because it's not a middling point, and it also it's important to emphasize it's rebuttal to a lot of the fallacious assertions in court history. The third Reich wasn't trying to expe weren't fascism. In fact, they were doing the opposite.

They didn't want these stabilizing regimes to pop up that had a shaky mandate, you know that we're uh, you know, kind of blowing up the internal constitution of traditional German allies. Like they didn't want that at all. Okay, A rare incidence of a like a radical cadre based revolutionary fascist do Waight Elements being wholly supported by Berlin and becoming the official government of an essential ally like independent state

of Croatia was really the only instance of that. I know some people watching this are going to say, like, well, what about the arrow cross in Hungary? Okay? That was the war was I mean, this was the final months of the war like that. That was you know though those were desperate conditions were by you know, moment to moment what was ah, what what was what was going to allow the you know, what was going to allow

Hungary to survive? Like as a state? Like was what was you know, circumstances were changing, if not weak to you know, if not day to day and then week to week. So I don't think that's a fair comparison. But a point I'm making people again and again too, is you know, there was there was a peculiar almost kind of like internal conflict in the in the right security apparatus we're about like in Romania. Okay, you like the Iron Guard. Hitler did not back the Iron Guard.

He backed anton Escu, who I think in a lot of ways was was was Hitler's best ally like he was closer obviously to Duce like uh like the fear what was I mean? But anton Escu made a huge commitment to Barbarossa and he was he was uh, he was a highly competent general officer. But that's that's the that's the peribial horse Hitler backed, I mean all the s S and the s D like they backed the

Iron Guard. I mean owing to their owing to their own kind of radical inclinations and and and desire to sort of develop a kind of foreign policy and to itself like go ahead.

of degenerated like modern materialism. If you like, the iron Guard is like this return to you know, the kind of if you would buy Doomazel's trifunctional hypothesis, if you the iron guards are returned like a combination of of of of the of functions, you know, the warrior function and the priestly function, which is uniquely aryan sociological paradigm, and that in Evel's view, you know, represented you know, owing to the kind of the peculiar conditions of Romania

and kind of you know, a culture that it's still managed to sustain this kind of like linear consciousness of

like ancient ways. You know it was it was it was like capital t tradition sort of like reaching into the modern era and like captivating, you know, captivating a national population in a way that you know, it was both anachronistic as as well as you know, revolutionary and in all the most unique ways in an Evol's opinion, like that's that's the only way that that's the only way that communists could be eradicated, like the entire like

modality of communists thought like if you'd like preview, pretty much every like oppositional tendency is essentially derived from the same the same lapse like materialists like conceptual biases. So yeah, but it's like why the s S and the s D likes them. That's a little more complicated, not philosophically, I mean, when it's like it's it's murky, but it's But the point is, uh, the Independent State of Croatia

stands out for a lot of reasons. But that's not to say that it had some kind of like weak mandate like people corny storians always claim it like, oh, you know, the Ustasha had no popular support, you know, I mean, I can't really be true when I mean, first of all, is the fact of you know, Bosnia being the true kind of the true kind of source of of of those kinds of conceptual imperatives ideologically not Croatia proper, but also the uh there was Croatia committed

UH at least one division sized element, the three sixty ninth Reinforced Infantry of the Wehrmacht was one hundred percent Croatian. The three ninety second, which is also called the Blue Division,

not to be confused with the Spanish Blue Division. The three ninety second was regiment sized, but you know you're talking about you're talking about thousands of men, all volunteers, who were also honored, as you know, being assimilated into the the The chap punk like lead element of Army Group South was Sault Stalingrid and all there was there's a Croatian Air Force legion that fought exclusively on the Eastern Front, and they scored like over two hundred kills

or like victories. You know, I mean this was I mean, I mean the Croats. The Croats were one hundred percent on board with the Axis Crusade. You know the fact that people didn't like love the Ustasha or something that's not that's not you can't really derive anything from that. And as we'll get into their reasons for their objections, oh to publish his Machiavelian tendencies more than it did that.

Oh they're too radical and violent, you know, they're this myth too that like oh the East sure were just too savage, so that even even the horrible evil SS said tried to stand them down. That's not That wasn't their objection. Their objection was that, you know, when publish, was essentially there to kind of like balance these furies you know of Italy, Romania, Hungary as well as as as well as as well as rooting out you know,

the partisan threat in Bosnia Hertzklovina. You know. Meanwhile, while they were doing that, they're also ethnically cleansing the Ndah of Serbs. Like their their notion was deport a third, like slaughter a third and like forcibly convert a third to Catholicism. And they published absolutely no problem with maslums. In fact, like he identified with them strongly. And we'll get into that in the minute when we get into

some of his bi biographic data. But that that was the The objection was like look like this this you know it was it was it was a question of like misplaced priorities. It wasn't like that, you know. The view was that like the regime and Zagreb was being too mean or something. But moving on it, uh the uh help me scroll down here and see what I've got on my outline. There's a uh such that it existed,

I mean such that there was it didn't matter. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Hitler realized, you know, which still existed until nineteen four one. Hiller realized that he had what all costs the court them into the Tripartite pect, which eventually he did and famously famously UH the Yugoslav regient Prince Paul on June third, ninety thirty nine, the the Prince Yugoslavia and his him, his wife was wasn't was was an english woman, you know, like born and bred.

They were invited to Berlin. There was this whole gala celebration. There's a banquet through in their honor. There was like a full military parade, you know. And Hitler's notion was twofold, like first of all the Yugoslav UH monarchy and it's it's its cabinet was was served dominated. Okay, And we talked about some of these dynamics again like in our

World War One series. They were absolutely they were they were they were pursuing a course of declared neutrality, which in reality was a was a politic area denial to forbid that Bermach from any kind of operational ingress or

egress or Yugoslav territory. All right, this had to be resolved in some way, not just because it's becoming clear and clearer that again, you know, Germany's that the primary threat to Germany was was was the Soviet Union, but also you know, the only the only way Germany could the only Germany could could could literally fuel its war machine as well as deploy in the as it needed to, was if there was you know, access to Romania, which and uh you know who these oil fields were were

literally fueling the German economy as well as it's as well as it's a nascent war machine. But also again too, there was Jewish strategic imperatives that you know, it's it's simply as as ah as the Balkans couldn't seply just be like written off an area of operations for all kinds of reasons, and especially as it became clear, you know, even before the advent of hostilities in ninety thirty nine, it was clear that you know, if the British intended to like see through on what they were you know,

allegending was the these guarantees on the continent that you know, the really the only really really in operational terms, like the only the only kind of assault upon Europe that could be staged conceptually or conceivably at that time would would have been you know, through the through the Balkan theater, you know, be it be it Greece, be it you know, Yugoslavia,

or or otherwise. But that's when Chagrin. Paul traveled to London soon afterwards, and it was clear that he was being actively courted by you know, the uh, the the intelligence establishment there, you know, and this becomes, uh, this is Keith understanding what developed in around Pavolic and we'll

see in a minute. It's uh, it's you know, and that's something I this is something I emphasized again and again to like people tend to view Germany's attack upon Greece, which really o do the the operational shortcomings the Talian army as Hitler trying to force the British to stand down and abandon any abandon any claim to the Mediterranean, as well as it's some kind of just like show a force, you know, based upon I mean, I guess the the first true like paratroop assault was on Crete

and it was a disaster. But this idea that that was some kind of flex intended to signal the UK. I mean, it's ridiculous. The reason why this was critical is for the reasons why I said, like the entire Bulkan campaign of the Vermont it owed entirely like Germany's security concerns, like conceptually orbited entirely around the Soviet Union,

and like existential terms. Okay, that's not in political terms obviously, Yeah, like the UK's on willingness to come to terms and it's you know, unrelenting pasture bellicosity like, yes, that that was hugely impactful and kind of the course of of of policy in Germany, you know, from the Foreign Ministry to the o k W and everything else. But in in in raw strategic terms what I what I just

said is not impeachable. The uh if the r F had gotten a toe hold too, I mean again, like they could have basically they could have they could have laid Romania to waste. It was you know, those foreig engine bombers that ultimately return to loose on germany civilian population. You know, if if if put to if it put to that purpose, you know what, it would have been devastating. I mean, this was the concrete particulars of that, those sort of of of ara of strategic bombing at scale

wasn't yet known, but it was. It was. It was known that you know, power projection against of what would you consider it be like a both the counterforce and counter value nature like it was. It was it was clear that this was going to be hugely impactful in the next war. And it's also you know, the like

we talked about before. I mean, by this time the the Soviet Union had or by by the advent of hostilities between Germany and Poland, the Soviet Unity captured you know, four hundred and ten thousand square kilometers, which was the

size the entire German empires of nineteen nineteen. I mean, this was not this was not Hitler couldn't afford to wait and see you know what developed and then trying to sinuate it, you know, a kind of a kind of you know, kind of a kind of meaningful Ford deployment in the Balkans by you know, a combination of like threats and incentivization like it just like was not in the cards the and especially when it became clear that Turkey is not gonna you know, Turkey traditionally was

ah was one of was one of the ways Germany hedged against them, you know, both UH, Russian and and British power in the Mediterranean. That was that was off the table. It's an interesting subtext. Late in the war, the foreign ministries, like the vertures of the Foreign Ministry, did make towards Ankara, but it was never I mean, by that point they were you know, they were in the thrones of desperation and and seeking any port in

a storm. It was never a serious never serious, It was never seriously within the minds of anybody who who was you know, realistic. But by UH by March.

like on more. In peace questions he had something of an absolute mandate, but in in times of peace or in conditions short of war, foreign relations was basically in the hands of a cabinet that had you know, like a long history really going, that had like you know, deep roots in the in the kind of was failing system, you know. So it's it's important to consider that. So Hiller realized that, uh all this though, was essentially null

and void. If Yugoslavia couldn't it couldn't be wooed. Some people speculate that the Greek operation was uh with prioritized as it was because Hitler aimed to offer part of northern Greece to the Ugslav government as some kind of concession.

Like I don't know if that's true or not, but it finally, at the close of March of forty one, uh, the perpetually ambivalent Yugoslavs signed a tripartit pecked psychological blow to London was tremendous, you know, this was, uh, this is probably the biggest, this is arguably more significant and

more significant policy coup then had been with Hitler. Tiso had accomplished in Czechoslovakia with like discrediting Britain's claim to you know, the moral high ground or to you know it insinuating itself as this, you know, p part of the rational arbiter of the power political affairs in the continent.

You know, because it was it's all of all of its moves that had been couched and you know, either h imperatives laid down at Versailles related the self determination, which of course was ridiculous in these you know, multi monstrosities that had no actual organic support or it was or they were framed in terms of you know, systemic stability.

And obviously the fact that you know, the US law to join the Tripartid Pact owing to a basic appreciation of Soviet aggression and the exsidential threat represented to them, because it nothing would have golled him more than again, you know, like allowing Germany basically a free hand to deploy across the frontiers. I mean, it speaks for itself, okay it but March twenty seventh, you know, literally days later Hewell reported to Hitler that they've been a cut

in Belgrade, Paul had been overthrown. There was crowds masking outside the German legation demanding, you know, Germany get out of Yugoslavia. Like you know, it's it's diplomatic representatives. We're being physically threatened. The Swedish envoy had been mistaken for a German, had been like beaten within an inch of his life. The uh, the British diplomatic legation, which quite clearly was you know, the British intelligence Service under lake

diplomatic cover. They were doing everything they could stir up crowds, you know, and and and and and arm them. This cup had been engineered. You the commanders alav Air Force. He was a career officer named Dustan Samovich. He was a a rabid chetnik who uh hated Germany. He organized revolutionary camed it around himself. The Canra refused to ratify the Tripartheid pecked however, they said they they they mouthed

these like mild protestations. Some of its office did saying that like, well we remain you know, allied with Germany against the Soviet Union, you know, which obviously was I I mean, I mean, it was bizarre, okay, I mean, obviously this was a move to the belief probably was that like confusion would reign in Berlin such that you know, there'd be some sort of paralysis of of policy decisionism. And by the time that was all worked out to

be too late. But that was an incredibly stupid gamble, especially considering the man who was at the Helm in Berlin, Hitler. Uh there's Hugh Will relayed later, there's only a few times he ever saw Hitler like actually like enraged, you know, like uh like yelling and like slamming his fist on

the desk and like visibly like agitated and angry. Because despite what Hollywood suggests, like Hitler wasn't that that wasn't his nature, but that he uh summoned uh title immediate and yodo and immediately he apparently, uh I called himself down and he said that, you know, owing a chorus, and I just to his Austrian upbringing, what his experience in the Great War, you know, he said that, you know, chauvinistic Serbs, you know, they've always been they've the've always

been responsible for you know, catastrophes at scale, you know, and uh, they're they're they're doing this again, and this will not stand, he said. He already fueled the send immediately. Von Brausich at that time was still the Army chief of staff. He summoned the Hungarian, the Hungarian and Bulgarian diplomatic and boys. He told the Hungarian envoy that Uh, the hour had struck. Quote for Hungary's revenge, he said that. Hitler said that Berlin would support any, any, all territorial

claims against Yugoslavia held by Hungary. He offered the Hungarians access to the port of Flume or Fume, I don't know how it's pronounced, which would give them interesting to the Adriatic. The Bulgarian envoy name of dragon off he offered, uh. He offered Bulgaria Macedonia. Is it just outright? He had a brief work conference with the holder brush it's and riven up, he said. The broad plan of assault in the Balkans, he said, politically, it's vital to fall upon

the Balkans without mercy. And again this was actually rare language for Hitler. He said, Yugoslavia to be your garden, is an enemy and there were to be destroyed as rapidly as possible, whatever protestations of loyalty should momentarily utter now again the it's uh, the subjects here wasn't just that the Semovich coup had been facilitated not an absolute measure, but in essential terms by London, but the communist part

of Yugoslavia. They played no part in the coup, but they made a significant contribution to the mass like street protests and uprising that is signal popular support for it. And again too, this was a a dicinctly like anti German flavor, you know, so like Moscow's hand was in this two you know, And that's the point I'm making people again and again, you know, like the Germans where you're talking about the okaw, whether you're talking like this

is a rare example of a quorum. You had a Hitler, you had a Quel, We had Don Browschitch, you had Ribbon Trup, you totally had title, basically had everybody who later on, you know, basically by December forty one, it was like a total fracturing here of of of worldview as well as ideas on strategy, both immediate and grand. But there was like an absolute consensus that then they were there. The permimborial news was tightening around Germany owing

to these developments in Yugoslavia. And UH that was not unfounded paranoia, that was absolutely correct, okay, which begs the question as to what London was thinking. I mean, Salin, Stalin, Stalin could afford to kind of like wait and see how these machinations would develop, Like why what what that was London doing with you know, provoking the Reich again and again into like a war that the British couldn't win.

I think it was just it was raw hubers in my opinion, and they they underestimated Hitler again and again and again and again. The UH official directive April sixth, nineteen forty one, it was fear Directive of twenty five. It's coloqually known as Operation twenty five, okay, or the April War. April six forty one. The invaded. The assault and Yugoslavia commenced and overwhelming, first with an overwhelming air assault and Belgrade with aloof off of targeting all facilities.

The Royal Yugoslav Air Force. The Vermont assaulted from southwestern Bulgaria. They were reinforced by thrust from Romania, Hungary and UH. The Ostmark which is Austria, Los Angeles. Italian forces were limited to air and artillery assaults until the Elemath to April, when the Italian Army was permitted to assault towards what's modern day Slovenia across uh Jubijana, which I'm sure I butchered the pronunciation. On the same day Hungarian forces and

their the was then Baca and Aranya. But like and both the Italians, Hungarians faced basically no resistance. Okay, there was a roslav counter assault into the northern parts of the Italian protector of Albania, which gained some initial ground, but the like the Yugoslavs, the Yugoslav army was in total collapse by that point. Now, why did the Yugoslav army just suddenly, like rapidly collapse, Well, I believe, and people have downplayed this lately owing to their own sort

of misguided concepts that the ideological narrative. I mean, there's a substantial uh Volksdotch community in Croatia and Valdier Slovena also, I mean Croatians, Slovenians, Croatians and Slovenians had you know, they were abjectly opposed to the Yugoslav regime, which was essentially like a Chetnick regime in disguise, and this constant had been a very effective fifth column and at least superficially, the Royal the Royal Goslav Royal Yugoslav Army was a

multi ethnic army. It uh, it had to maintain the appearance of not just being you know, a like like a like a chet Nik revolutionary element. So I mean, I I think basically nobody but the Serbs were going to fight, okay, and the mask the mask dropped. Proverbially, the armistice was signed on the seventeenth of April forty one. You know, based on the what amount of the uncungental

surrender Yuoslav Army, it just no longer existed, okay. I mean a combination of annihilation of forces and being like mass desertion and you know, just garrisons, you know, command garrison commanders just surrendering without firing a shot. You know. The armists came into effect at noon the next day. The Commomity with Slavia was an occupying partition by the Axis. Most of Serbia and but not became a German occupation zone.

Other areas or other areas of what had been Yugoslavia were annexed by Hungary, Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, and of course Croatia became the nd H. And we'll get into that momentarily. But the the Yugoslav army or what remained of it military command like officially you know, and uh what what remained of its infrastructure just formally became under you know, like SETNA authority in command. So I mean, obviously this this happened literally within hours, you know what I mean.

That's it's it's obvious. What was that the reality of the you know, the like the the Yugoslavian state, they became you know, a like kind of negatively apparent to all. But it's but again it's one of the I guess Hitler's exact words. Inf're a directive of twenty five and

forgive me, forgive me if my Chicagoese excellent butchers. This is Yugoslavian militarish und stops builds Schlagen, which means the the total instruction of Yugoslavia militarily and as a state for all time, and to do so with pitiless, without without mercy. Okay, Now enter the Shah and Polovich and like who were they and who was he? Because this is key I just doneerstanding how events developed, but it's also it's key understanding the like the modern Croatian state,

including the Croatia that exists today. I'm not saying that Croatia today or we're even tu to my Croati was just literally like the NDH. But Tujman deliberately drew upon that precedence, you know, which again kind of defeats this claim by court history that oh, well, you know the list, this show was nothing. But you know what, this this this client regime with no depth that nobody supported, you know,

whether I mean, how anybody feels about it. It's you know, if we're talking about modern creation statehood, we're talking about the Eustashire regime. And Pavlich himself was an incredibly dynamic person. You know. It was not some peasant rabble rouser or some or some military straw man. You know, he was actually he was. He was quite talking about politan and

and and just lived a remarkable life. And he was a lawyer by trade versu and foremost, I mean he very early on bloodied his hands as a political soldier and a partisan. But that wasn't that that he was a man of many faces. Okay, he dasha, I wrote, Canaries, you know, the chief of the adverb, which was Germany's foreign intelligence service. This is one of the AD there's greatest successes. Okay. And there are some key successes of the AD there, despite the fact Canaries was not just

a fifth columnist, he was an active trader. He was collaborating with the Allies. Okay. So the AD there was totally compromised from the top down on some level. The s S always knew this, and this was one of the imperatives for the development of the s D, which would seem on his face to be just like a redundant bureaucracy within the security apparatus. But there were some bona fide, brilliant operational successes carried off by the AD there.

Like whether that was because in at operational levels there were committed national socialists who were following through as if you know, there the institution they started to not being compromised. Whether Canaris had you know, mixed feelings about his loyalties like this is not clear, but the EUSTA shows a sendency owed obviously not exclusively, but an essential contributing cause of its success was the fact that, uh, you know,

Canaris had had fermented a breakaway Croatian movement from early on. Okay, and a A this is this, this is an armed vanguardist around movement. There was no concept of it, you know, abiding legality. There was no concept of it standing for contested elections. A different situation than in Weymar. Okay. The only, the only, the only way a prod national constitution, a prod national state was going to be realized was was

through was was by the gun and by the knife. Okay, Canaris is obvious kind of a choice for a leadership element was a general named Sladko Katternic. He was an officer of the old Hasperg Army.

Pavlic Noura Laura Fetternic. We're we're ciphers. They both wielded tremendous power and cloud. But I'm talking when I say figurehead,

I mean in terms of outward appearances. When of Hitler's challenges with balancing Italian demands on the Balkans and specifically Croatia, in order to placate Mussolini over among other things, the murder of Dolphus and the subsequent ansaluse and other things, early on, he agreed to see the Dalmatian coast to Italy at least as a sphere of influence and an event of in an event in general war, you know, as a as a territorial imperative that they would be

permitted to capture. This caused intense resentment in Zagreb, but Hitler realized it was unnecessary evil. Okay, Now, Pavolic, having spent so many years in Italy and having courted, really since nineteen thirty two thirty three alliance with the Italian fascists, he was kind of Mussolini. He wasn't Mussolini's man, is sometimes alleged in Zagreb, but he was Italians, and frankly, when it game clear that if he was gonna do Croatia, just kind of like this exploitable aspect I brought published

in the National Socialist camps so firmly. Okay Canarius is uh adjutant was a He was an officer by name of u Lahausen. He warned Uh the fear as well as his boss Canarios, that they had to proceed very delicately, that the resentment over the loss of Dalmatia and just kind of the the arrogance which the Italians were proceeding

was wreaking absolutely havoc. He's at the literally said, Uh, the Cross are people of honor with a long military tradition, and it is better beyond words to be trodden down and humiliated now by an army has not been able to pin one victory to its colors, speaking of the Italian army. Okay now who was Ante Pavolich public was born and Hurtzegovina. The village of Redina, which is literally in the mountains Okay in a central Bosnia, roughly nine miles southwest of Hezichi. It was then part of the

Ottoman Empire, but it had been seated. It was formerly under the sovereignty of the Sultan, but it had been but the entirety of Bosnians to go Vina had phone under Habsburg rule by eighteen seventy eight order the Congress of Berlin. Okay, And essentially it was it was a conquest without a shot being fired, as the Habsburgs raidn army of a on thirty thousand men and threatened to assault it. And this is this is one of the if you'll allow the tangent, this is this is one

indicator of Ottoman power, like precipitously having deteriorated. They didn't even they didn't even take the field of battle. They just like seed it with some meaningless with with the concession of some meaningless declaration that it remained under perhaps remained under Ottoman authority. But there's an interesting dynamic here

of a cultural nature, and this impacted powers just upbringing directly. Now, all of his parents had moved to Bosnia from a village that was in Croatia proper or like what what would be in Croatia within Croatia propers borders today. His father had done so to work on UH the Sarajevo rail line, but ultimately as a small child, the family settled in a village called gi Zitto or Ja Zero or public in a primary school. But Zero was a

Bosnia majority domain. It was overwhelmingly sunny Moslim, so pabolish the crowd he attended.

And this is why in the NBA Sunni Islam was the other state religion, along with Catholicism and uh Hanjar. The bosniakafnss it's national identifier was first Croatian because official policy by order of povl It was it was that Bosnian Muslims are racial Croatians, and I'm going to I'm gonna make people happy because like I brought like props today. This is like the fez that like Hanjar like division would where can people see that? I think this is awesome,

Like uh, the other people don't. But it's like literally like a fez with a totem Kopp and a reich Saddler. You know, I don't think it would look too like cool on me, but like it's it's just freaking cool. But but I mean, this is the this is like I'm seriously like this was taken. This wasn't just like superficial.

So you know, Pavlic was h quintessentially cosmopolitan and like that even more than it was apparent in his early life as we'll get into but he uh he As he became a teenager and a young adult, he had a he had a much older brother who lived in uh in Zagreb and during kind of like as as as police got an adolescence when he was attending school and trad and he became a hero in a nationalist idealogues like guys who who proceeded what we came with

the Croatian Party of rights first and foremost a guy named uh Anteashevich was like an early uh like like like you know, like like froat nationalist, you know, and like one of his uh like one of one of the one of his that one of his, like like one of his followers or or uh one of the guys he mentored kind of like in in In in the art of uh In philosophy of like you know, political warfare was a you'll said Frank, who later became

like the leader of the Party of Rights. But Polloch's notion was like, well, this is great that you know, crowds have like this kind of like of Covid, this kind of like racial sense of self, you know, and and kind of a path forward for an independent state. But his concern was that, like this is too much

of like a peasant phenomenon. But when he when he when he when he went to stay with his elder brother in Zagreb, like he realized that, you know, the dialect was very much alive in Zagreb and people were openly identifying, you know in you know, in what we're traditionally you know, cosmopol and Habsburg cities, you know, croats. We're living openly as Croats. I mean, I'm not trying to be silly, but i mean like I'm trying to think of the best way to characterize it and that

and that that. From that point on, you know, like he public realized like this was this was a viable way forward. Okay again as like a vang artist like revolutionary imperative, you know, like again, this was the the Yugoslav situation was nothing at all like the Viymor situation. It. Uh. Polish was always beset by health problems from the time he was like kid until he was murdered, like you know, years after the war. And we'll get into that in

a later episode. But he uh he ultimately, he ultimately took a law degree as a frankly, it was like part of the chorus for partisans of the time on both sides of the idological divide revolutionaries. Rather, he obtained his doctorate in nineteenth July ninety fifteen, and he basically uh he joined the Croatian part of the rights formally around nineteen eighteen and worked as a lawyer in Zagreb.

It was uh nineteen twenty nine when his kind of radicalization and tactical terms at least really ossified, and that was around the time or it was it was literally as it was at the same time as what became to be known as the January Dictatorship January sixth, ninety twenty nine, part literally a royal dictatorship was declared and what was then the Kingdom of Serbs Cross and Slovenes, King Alexander the first we talked about some in our

World War One episodes. Alexander's notion was quite literally to create a Yugoslav ideology and a single Yugoslav nation, you know, like under his dictatorship through you know, a combination of of of a population force, population transfer, suppression of discrete languages, presumably you know, outright suppression of the Islamic religion. You know, UH, attempts to strip the Cross of the ability to pursue

and express culture and in public and shared forums. It ended in nineteen thirty one with the adoption of Yugoslav constitution what was called the Yugoslat ninth round Uslut Constitution. But the but the damage was done, Okay, Any people realize that in their view, UH, the two probable outcomes for any Yugoslavian enterprises, either that there's going to be a Chetnik dictatorship, you know, with the alibi or the mask rather of oh, this is you know, a multi

this is a multi ethnic state. You know, we're all where the rights of all all the all three ethnic groups are are honored. Or it was going to be, you know, uh, it was going to be a matter of you know, the act of suppression essentially of all of all cultural Russian, not unlike what's happening in the Soviet Union, you know, under the but without even the kind of ideological culture of Marcist Leninism to prop it up.

You know, this kind of this kind of utterly contrived you know, Yugoslavism as a little more than a pretext for you know, the crushing of of discreet historical identities at this time published formerly organized the Eustaship. I have absolutely no fluency in serbral croat as I understand it, and I'm sure the fellows who do will correct me if I'm wrong. I believe USTA should roughly translates to

insurgents or insurgency. Okay. The official founding in Ustacial lore like to this day, is that the party was founded on January seventh, nineteen twenty nine, It was around this time UH published came under basically like constant um police surveillance. During one during a lapse in this surveillance, uh he fled to Austria and uh proceeded like nominally under the with with under the predext of you know, seeking medical treatment.

But it's not going health problems there. You know, Vienna at that time was completely lit, you know, by conspiratorial designs and people pursuing those designs, and I mean that that was the place to be frankly, if you were trying to accomplish what he was trying to accomplish. You know, he he made he made contact with other craigras who were, you know, looking for some kind of catalyzing or organizational imperative,

you know, to develop cadres. Most of these guys were political refugees, you know, they've been chased out of of Soviet territory, or they were being terrorized by the Yugoslavian secret police, you know, or they were they were for Habsburg army officers, you know, who'd refused to return Yugoslavia, you know, after the succession of you know, chetnik and royalist intrigues. After a short stay there where he made

contact with, among other people, some Bulgarian radicals. What a similar you know, with similar ambitions in mind to their own peoples. He moved to Budapest, where there was a more kind of welcoming environment for partisans the right Okay. In March of nineteen twenty nine, the Eustasha elements still within Yugoslavia undertook a campaign a direct action, the first incidents of which was the assassination of A Tony Schigel in Zagre. Schigel was basically a regime mouthpiece. He was

editor of at the top newspaper in Zagora. It was a close comment on a King Alexander and Verty much the mouthpiece of the regime. Like uh Lewis is should murdered him? Well, this was going on the pavlic. Uh He managed established contact with an element that was known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. This is about a

month subsequent to the murder of a Schlegel. Schlegel or Schligel, I think it's Schlagel, but and the uh He in some of his contexts Bulgarian contexts that he made in Vienna. They traveled to Bulgaria in April. This led to the signing by a number of partisans ethno nationalist partisan types

of what came to be the Sofia Declaration. It formalized up It formalized cooperation between Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian radicals like radical nationalists were posed, uh, you know, the the Belgrade regime as well as the the communists and the chip Nicks. Yuoslavia formally protested the government and Sofia publics was then he was tried for high treason and absentia and sentenced to death on the seventeenth of August nineteen

twenty nine. Owing to that verdict, a month subsequent, in September, Publisher was arrested in Vienna. The Viennese, or sympathetic, at least those in the security apparatus, you know, had more than a fledging sympathy for him and his cause. Rather than extraditing him, they expelled him to Germany. This caused some problems because at this time there were still formally

good offices dilomatically speaking between Germany and Yugoslavia. The German and Batchigoslavia was a typical foreign ministry veteran of the time named Adolf cost was a supporter of Yugoslavia. He was literally a personal friend of Tom Alexander, so this obviously not bode well for Poblished before this kind of hostile sentiment from you know, costas friends and my places could develop into truly threatening police action against his person.

Published left Germany under an assumed name and went to Italy, where he already had family as well as in theological contacts. Now in Italy, at least for a couple of years, he frequently changed location and lived under a false name. He lived as an Italian national with his assuming identity was at an Italian national, most Alban's Antonio Sendar or Serdar. He had contact with Italian authorities at least you know, the intelligence apparatus of the Fishes since at least ninety

twenty six, nine twenty seven. In n twenty nine he managed established deeper contexts and through his UH friends in the legal profession as well as some as well as some radical right journalists that he befriended, he managed to UH court. Mussolini's brother, Ornaldo Mussolini, was a strong supporter of crowd independence, just outright and like a very like a very like hardline fascist. Publish again owing to whether it's his cosmopolitan upbringing or just his kind of natural

intelligence for sociological affairs. Wherever he went, he seemed to create a basic sympathy and understanding of the crowd situation among Italians, at least Italian fascist and adjacent wright wingers. He was very good at this. Okay, that Fall Publish published what became a widely circulated treaties really more than a brochure of a less than like an actual book.

This ends us being widely circulated in the Third Reich, especially in later years, which uh became significant for various reasons. But this this, this is this brochure, if you, was called the Salesment of the Croatian State Lasting Peace in the Balkans, which was kind of like a it's like a it was a summary of Croatian history, you know, from kind of like the the you know, the the

Habsburg German like and and and adjacent Ustaship perspective. The Italian authorities did not want to formally support the Ustaship, not just because I believe it or not at this time, and we made the point before, you know, kind of like the zenith of this was Musolini presiding over the four powers packed. But Musolini was he didn't seem it

himself as this as this is. It's kind of like is this kind of like great negotiator who like presided over these kinds of diplomatic concords and like it leads

a stabilizing influence. So the Italians for all of it's uh, for for all of its revolutionary aptitude and capturing power, like the fascists in this epoch and especially before the non solution things, they were behaving very much like a national conservative party, and a lot of these guys authority, they didn't want to they didn't want to openly support some like some like radical right partisan you know, like poplished and like the Ustaship, you know, to protect the

reputation and for sake of optics of nothing else. And that's important to understand. This is like an odd period and in kind of like the the Inner Warriors, but Mussolini saw them as a Mussolini at all, first and foremost wanted to destroy Yugoslavia and the capture you know, some kind of ingress of the Adriatic. So Publish almost undoubtedly received personal support from Mussolini, and so did the Ustasha generally like their offices in in Zagreb and elsewhere.

And towards that end, Mussolini allowed Publish to remain in exile in Rome and openly trained his paramilitaries in preparation for war with Yugoslavia. And UH Publish made it so. He developed association with Croatian expats in Italy as well as as well as HAPs for garment veterans and UH Germans uh Volksdeutsch who were had direct connection, direct links to the to the to the government of the Reich, and a lot of these guys had very strong like

military experience. Okay, So he was making all that, he was making all the right moves and connecting with all the right people to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. Nineteen thirty one, again a financial up from Mussolini, Pobles established formal camps for partisans, first UH in Boveno, Italy, and ultimately UH there was camps you know, throughout throughout Italy and as well as Hungary and almost certainly Bosnia,

though under obviously like deep cover. The UH. This created this this, this, this, this kind of infrastructure facility A Mussolini facilitated the smuggling of weapons and political literature in Tropaganda into Yugoslavia proper. The camps were moved around constantly, again at the behest of Mussolini, which you know, and Musolini was kind of like he like shined brightest when

he was charged with a revolutionary task. You know, once such revolutions had been ambitions have been consolidated, Mussolin didn't shine so bright, but he was very much in his element here, and Poblich was very, very fortunate to be able to curry his favor and learn from him. And again that's why politics can't be just be dismissed as

some third rate dictator or something. What he accomplished here basically as a wanted man showing up in Rome without any particular cloud or money and just you know, within within months, you know, getting an ear with al Duce. That's nothing sort of remarkable, that's Hitler like, and it's

an unlikelihood of ascendancy. But the Ustasha have managed to establish adjacent associations not just of ethnic cross but a sympathetic fascist and national socialist all throughout Western Europe and in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and even in the United States and Canada did agree to which the croas developed a kind of outsized cloud and national socialists and fascists

and adjacent circles, like they can't be overstated. I mean, this is a tiny country with like a very very small XPA community is because there's not that many of them, and the fact that there's this kind of reach is incredible, I think. I mean, obviously I'm gonna admire a pobliss I mean, I think it's being unclear by now, but the uh this undoubtedly in ninety three, as as these

elements who had been training diligently were turned loose. You know, there's a series of bombings and shootings in the us Lavia proper which led to just this blanket cracked down a political activity as the state declared, you know, a state of emergency and this counter terrorist regime. It it exploited that mandate to profoundly abuse impoverished crot peasants, you know, the brutality towards which was almost always meted out by

by Serbian police and and insecurity elements. So this was kind of like a splendid example of cultivating a strategy attention, you know, like among among other things, in order to facilitate the emergency of a revolutionary paradigm beyond the kind of narrow cadre structure. We've been going for like an hour and twenty minutes and I still probably got another hour material. I'm thinking if we get break in a minute and then take this up in the next episode,

that would be fantastic. Let's do it. Let's take Yeah. Well, I forgive me if that was too like long winded, but there's a lot here and next episode will we'll we'll deal with this, you know, the the formal ascendancy of Pavlich to the office of Poklovnik, and you know, the war years and sick for cash and all of that stuff. I didn't realize it been going on that long.

underscore number seven h O A S seven seven seven. Yeah, we're we're all over the place in this in this bitch man. Oh on my Instagram too, So you're gonna like if you if you like, you can find like my my photographs if you want to.

in the sphere of activity. But it's also it's just like a good repository of like photos man, you know, and it's it's I can rationalize like dumping a lot of photos there without feeling like a fucking guro.

State Department did. Even after even post Bush and Baker, I'll be out of the Clint administration like went about it in kind of any illiterate way in terms of their rationale. I mean, like the military in those days was still pretty they had their stuff together operationally. But to understand why Helmet Cole did what he did, understand what the view was from Washington, you've got to you've

got to look at what the Croatians were doing. Okay, that's why today I'm gonna take up what the Serbian case was and why it was entirely misguided for them to be accused of starting the wars. They absolutely didn't. I mean that that's that's asked on any way, to claim that, you know, an ethnic conflict is like a schoolyard fight and and some party combat and it's oh,

it's their fault. That's not how things work. And even though he even though he doesn't gain a lot of sympathy, I mean even from like his own people like I I found slobod on the lowst Divage to actually be quite a sympathetic figure what was done with with the Hague. He was quite literally killed by being put on trial, and I mean that was grotesque. I've actually always considered

myself to be pretty sympathetic to the Chetnik cause. I mean not not because I find common cause with it, but I mean I I'm sim of that to anybody who you know, who's whose ambition is to address the historical grievance of their people and in a way that

guarantees their posterity in the future. So today we're go get a little bit into like the Serbian situation as it was in nineteen ninety one, and why you know, Meloseovich was basically somebody who was He was the only as ahead of state other than Gerzelski, who doesn't really count. He was the only he was the only Communist functionary who made in an executive role after the inner German

border collapsed, which is interesting. So this idea that he was some archchetnik, genocidal mediac, I mean that, I mean, that's that that's just that's that's a propaganda narrative anyway. But you know, were they were those stripes, I mean, he wouldn't he wouldn't have enjoyed the posterity he did, which should be obvious. But wellokre some of that stuff today and hopefully people will realizing that, you know, trying to assign blame to any party combat and dur any side.

I mean, I don't do that anyway. I mean, there's rare. One of the reasons why the Ukraine situation is bizarre, it's because it's a rare case of quite literally a conspiracy to provoke an irrational war that almost never happens, you know. But even in that case, obviously there's there's conditions on the ground that make that possible. It's not just some sort of spontaneous contrivance or conspiratorial design made real, because that's not that's not how political affairs develop. But

the Third Balkan War. Misha Glenny, he's a guy who I don't particularly like. I mean, he's he's basically he's kind of like a typical like globalist liberal. But he did actually write about the only apologia the Serbian people that got like mainstream promotion, which is interesting. So he's more complicated than some of his declared positions on sociological things would suggest. He assigns the onset of the Third Balkan War, which is what you know, people in the

West lump people in the West lump. The Homeland War like the Bosnian War and the coast of Low conflict into like one conflict. I understand why. I understand why they do that, even if it's an incomplete shorthand for what really is you know, free discrete conflicts that derived from a common next is a causality, but something that

shouldn't be controversial. June twenty fifth, nineteen ninety one, that's that's when hostilities arrived in the Balkans within the conflict cycle that is referred to as the Third Balkan War in at least an Anglophone countries. That was the date that the Republican Slovenia, which led the charge towards THEE Session. It wasn't the cross initially. I mean, I think they would have anyway. I mean, it's an open ended question, but they're the ones who who took that step that theretofore.

You know, tu Jaman for all of his talk of creating a truly Croatian republic that like reflected you know, the the singular and an exclusive culture and the Croatian people. I mean, he didn't make that move, okay, until after the Slovenians declared independence, after the Republic of Croatia did. The Yugoslav People's Army, which was Serbian led. Some people attacked me for suggesting that the security apparatus was Serb heavy.

Yugoslav National Army was. It wasn't overwhelmingly Serbian, but the majority of general officers, to the tune of about sixty and seventy percent, where ethnic Serbs. Like that, they can't be denied what their symbolies were. I mean that I can't tell you. I mean, I'm sure it varied. I mean, but the fact of their majoritarian status can't be denied. Okay, the Ugoslav army in Vados, Slovenia, and that was really

when the die was cast. Now the State Department claim as well as what was pontificated about on the floor of the United Nations, which in those days, on the heels of the Gulf War, the UN still had clout, which seems strange today. But there was this big hope that the UN was gonna finally fulfill its you know,

intended function since the Cold War was over. And now the reasoning was that, you know, decision making is no longer going to be colored by these these kinds of strategic exigencies, you know, and now the sort of community and nations is going to emerge you know, and and work towards like a truly globalized plege of security. That's as nine in my opinion, for all kinds of reasons.

But that was the belief and coming off of the Gulf War, which really even more so than the Korean War, because I mean the Korean War, the Soviets were boycotting the Security Council and so it was, and so were a bunch of their client states like this when one of Bush's master strokes was the Gulf War, and it wasn't just a military operation executed with Prussian efficiency. There was truly like a quorum of of of civilized nations as it were, including the then still like said Soviet Union.

So when things what the hell in Yugoslavia, everybody, whether you know, from Berlin to Paris to London and to Tokyo to Washington, oh well, this is a un matter, will come to some sort of we'll come to some sort of you know, solution there. And we'll get into

that in a minute. But because in my opinion, conceptually even people don't realize they're doing it, and even that coterie of national leadership that was in place in nineteen ninety one, globally, even the more sophisticated among them, they were still sort of drunk on their own rhetoric, which for decades by that point had been derived from you know,

the judgment levity at Nuremberg. They still were operating according to this idea that, well, warfare has aggressors and victims, or you know, it has people who strike first and people are defending themselves. So I think a genuine prejudice set in against the Setnik cause for a lot of reasons. But initially the claim was, oh, you know, the US law people's army, that that's a s Bean, that that's

a Serbian military force and all but names. So when the Yugoslav Mansion army intervene and Slovenia, the claim was, oh, this is an example of Serbia identism, you know, and that's that's that that that's what's causing all of this. And of course Newsweek, which in Time magazine and all these kind of print media outlets which in those days too, I mean, this is when the legacy media was argulated Zenith.

They started running these stories about you know, ethnic cleansing and mass rate in Bosnia, and the framing of the narrative was well, this is all happening because of Serbia identism, you know, and Slovanon Belosovich is this mad dictator and the only way he's hanging on to power is because he's taken on a chetnik guy's none of which makes

any sense. And for context, at the beginning of nineteen ninety one, on Yugoslavia, which still existed, there was a federation of six republics with Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. Plus there's two autonomous provinces, Virtual Dina and Coastovoe. The eight major ethnic populations that lived in those regions, they approximately correspond in the political divisions of

the federation, and this is by design. And in each region there could each region could claim an ethnic concentration that corresponded to their national signifier. But there were there were deep minority populations in all of these loka. Now, one big weakness in the narrative, I mean there's many, okay, but one big weakness the narrative of Serbs going crazy is that not not all Serbs lived in the geographic region arbitually designated Serbia. There were six hundred thousand Serbs

lived in Croatia. The majority of these were urbanized, and it went so far as tu Jaman for all, I've got a lot of respect for tou Jaman and for all of his sophistication as a statesman, and he wasn't a military veteran, but he was basically an academic and he hung around with the Serbians he hung around were in Zagreb or they were cosmopolitan types, you know, who he'd met in like university life. And there was the urbanized Serbs in Zagreb. They had a symbiotic relationship with

their Croatian neighbors. Like how much of this owed to the fact that they were the minority, and when you were a minority, you told the line. That's an open ended question. But there was even a portmanteau called Herbie, which as of her body, which means cross, and serby, which means serbs. So this was like a thing, all right. But the core of kind of Serbian identity and patriotism

in Croatia it was a rural It was concentrated. Uh brought slots of the countryside, particularly in Kanin Kanean, which is once for context, in the medieval period that's like do like the habs for Europe. That's where Croatian kings were coronated. Okay, it became a militant home of Serb nationalism. Okay, it's very impoverished. People's fortunes and outcomes are very limited even today. It's also on the path literally to Dalmatian, which is essential. That's a life splood of Croatia and

like the Balkans in general, Okay, for obvious reasons. You know, that's that's the uh, that's the ngress and the negress of the Adriatic. See these oral serbs really for the I mean they these are the These are the guys who are then elderly and the descendants of guys who who had fought with you know, the the hail of its Chetnicks, you know, like they didn't suddenly become cosmopolitans

who wanted to live in some Croatian republic. And Tujman, now mind you, he's a guy who came up through that Tito with stapparatus, So it's not like he was like some arch Eusta share or something. And he wasn't a fascist, despite what people claimed in Belgrade and what a lot of left wingers claimed in Germany and elsewhere. But he did draw upon a lot of ustas symbol and he did say like, we're not gonna run from our leg you know, for our heritage in the indefended

state of Croatia. You know, basically people who said they wanted some sort of disallow of the state, He's like, fuck you. And uh, you know, the two Jami regimes started doing things, you know, like only conducting official business in the Western alphabet. Okay, Serbs used to really and this isn't a small thing, Okay, Like even if you speak the same common language, you know, even even in dialect,

that's pretty similar. If suddenly, if suddenly you go outside and like, you know, the garments not connucting business and an alphabet you can read, they're gonna feel pretty fucking marginalized, you know. And even beyond that, it like symbolically it it it made the Serbs feel, I'm just profoundly disrespected. But when you consider that an act of war was on you know, the UH, the Slovenes as well as UH, as well as both the Bosnian craws us in the

Bosnia acts. You know, the Bosnian Moslims who in the next episode. Will we'll get into their story a bit if if that's agreeable. You know, they were they were looking around themselves saying like, there's there's there's there's an ethnic war on. You know, this isn't hypothetical anymore. There's a shooting war going on between ethnic secession, this and the us LAV Army, which at least at the general

officer level is majoritarian serve. And Tujaman now was saying that Croatia is a state exclusively the Croatian people, the only democracy that's valid. And Tujiman did run a democracy. There were contested elections, that's and arguable. However, as a matter of constitutional mandate, you know, the new infendent Croatia was exclusively Croatian, you know, and if you didn't identify that way, you better start otherwise, you know, you're not

one of us. And they jump from that in the wake of a Ross and Creed which has actually already jumped off. I'lbeit in a different theater, but still, you know, local to where you live, you're gonna realize that you can be very able to find yourself ethnically cleansed. And the guys putting the bandit at you could be guys who you were totally at peace with, you know, a year ago or a month ago or a day ago, you know, and people think that's not possible, like even

in America. Obviously I'm not comparing the two situations, but when the Floyd bullshit jumped off, that's right before I got off probation, like right before I got back on the internet, and I was like, I was living in this like ghetto YMCA that was like eighty percent black, and I was like, okay with those guys, but I realized, like at the worst of it, I'm like, you know, if things get like really bad, like these guys aren't going to be my friend, you know, like, and it's

I think most people don't think that way in this country. And I mean I'm a minority here. I mean, thankuly not in my town, but I mean this palm like a minority of one. But I mean, so this idea that oh, those people just went crazy, like your neighbors wouldn't fucking whack you. Yeah they would. Yeah. I mean like even here, let alone in a place things that

bad enough, you know. I'm not saying people should be paranoid or something or you know, order mac and cheese buckets from Alex Jones and you know, pretend that the fucking apocalypse is coming. But this idea that you know, politics can't turn on you because oh we there was some kind of concord with my neighbors and they like me like that's all bits are often and and and a rossen Krieger or whatever equivalent is. You know, So

that's that's basically that's basically what the perception was. And you go Slavia like a lot of the satellite states. You know. One of the reasons why East Berlin was so important to the Warsaw Pact. It wasn't just because that was, you know, the westernmost frontier of the communist world. It was because of the Communists, especially because of their pretensions about you know, the industrial proletariat and the degree to which they relied kind of upon these intellectual university

types to kind of facilitate the program. You know, they they really it's like the countryside like didn't exist to them, you know, and even people like too Juman, even though in Yugoslavia, I don't believe, I don't believe Titoism was ever adoptionary kind of Marxist Leninism, but it definitely the political culture definitely was similar in terms of blind spots

and these guys. It's like even in the small country, you know, it's like it's like the countryside you know where three you know, six indreo thousand Serbs live, you know, who view life and the ethnic situation the same way

they did in nineteen forty one. It's like this didn't exist because like, oh, here in Zagreb, you know, we were all the same and our served neighbors, you know them gon a funny customs to go to the wrong church, but they can learn to be Croatian ha ha, Like there really is something to that, and you know that that really can't be overstated, you know, the uh so it was basically in Canean the canon and basically what

became the secessionist crane uh Serb Republic. This is where this is where the crowd say, actually could not afford going to be some kind of iridescent Serbian movement or some kind of mobilized Chitnik response to what Zagreb was doing. That's the last place they can afford this to happen. And it's absolutely where it did happen. And there's also going to be the toughest Serbs live the creation that's

where they lived, you know. The uh So, in the first month at two Jamond's election, and again I emphasized that Tujman was elected, people are gonna say whatever they you know, it's kind of like people have become less friendly to Croatia, the Croatia of history in academic treat medisine. Know now that we're like thirty years out and you know, they're they're increasingly casting to Jaman is so I'm going to dictator. I mean, the Croatian system of this day

is a strongly presidential system. But tou Jaman was elected president and a normal election. You know, you can't you can't just say you can't claim you know that like Russia is not a democracy. I mean Croatia is a democratic is any other country on Earth? Okay? And it was in nineteen ninety one as it is today, you know.

And uh in the lead up to tu Jemon's election, again it was its academic university friends, but not only ran his campaign and sort of integrated his platform and his optics into a modern media apparatus at a kind that you know existed in the West. But these are the guys who are advising him on policy also, you know, and what he needed, I mean, frankly, he needed the defectors from the usav National Army who knew the situation and the military apparatus as it stood then, not twenty

years ago. You know, he needed he needed guys who could tell him what the situation was on the ground, you know, in the countryside where you know, when war came. I mean, that's not only worth decided, but that's that's what Croage would have to capture in order to remain viable as a state. And uh the uh. There was also two the local cadres that facilitated Tujeman's ascendancy. In contrast to the people who constitute his cabinet. A lot of these guys were probably what would be viewed under

normal conditions as extreme. You know. There were guys who for years or for decades in some cases that they were middle aged. There were guys who'd basically been like carrying the torch of of crawd nationalism, you know, and biding their time until the Titos regime could be torn down. These guys had a basic antipathy to serbs like that that can't be denied. You know, such a ground organization are basically guys who hate serves anyway, It doesn't matter what,

It doesn't matter what your control group is saying. It doesn't matter what Tujman, you know, playing mellow academic is talking about a conciliatory posture between populations. You know, I mean, it's not it's not it's not something, it's not something that's that's gonna resolve in anything but a violent separation. Now.

I I mean again, like nobody's in augur and I think, I think key political figures, even people who had a better understanding, remember realistic understanding of the situation than perhaps Chujiman himself did, they couldn't have foreseen the extent of the differences, and like the degree of the division and the kind of hostility just beneath the surface, like coming

from both sides. And when Tujman won the nineteen ninety election, what he should have done, regardless of what he intended in terms of you know, making the city apparatus, you know, truly like a truly national, democratically exclusively crowd apparatus, Like he absolutely should not have done anything provocative until it was clear where the cards were gonna fall and in terms of secession and what the response in Belgrade was

gonna be. But at the same time too, there's a twenty twenty hindsight, and even even in a relatively unfree country, which Creatia was not. Again, but even under conditions where an executive doesn't have to abide some sort of direct ballot mandate, I mean, every every chief executive is bound by the tenor of the of a opinion in the body politic, you know, So, I mean I Tujuman was in part be kind of carried on a current of

of of zeitgeist that probably was irrepressible. And there's also I mean, there's always there's always something of uh, I mean you as you know, because of where you live now when compared to the locale of your birth and upbringing, there's always some kind of disdain that the city has for the country. Like all these people they're they're just simple fucking people. Like they they're passive, they're going to

tolerate whatever we kind of put on them. Like that's never the case, you know, and particularly not when there's a tradition of partisanship that breaks down rigidly on ethnic lines. I mean, like there wasn't Croatia. But you know, again, a lot of this I think is out of a Hegelian A lot of this is out of man's hands, you know. And it's also the uh, the one thing people did say at the time. And you know, Tito himself was a Croat and he successfully suppressed Serb fraud

enemity during the totality of his rule. But I mean, I think that's misguided too, man. I mean, one of the things Tito he drives his mandate not from the fact that cross and Serbs suddenly decided they love one another. It's because the genius and Tito is he found a way to keep both uncle saying man the Soviets out, you know. And I mean that even the most even the most kind of sectarian minded, ethnically chauvinistic minded Prome

Serb or Bosniak would realize that, you know. And within this paradigm, you know, we stand together, or we at least tolerate the situation as it is, or or or or we all die, you know. I know, I don't think that's entirely fair, you know. And there was other

things too, I mean, the this was documented. It wasn't just probably probably in it from Belgrade, like upon the ascendancy of upon two mins of elections, there was like a massed emotion and termination to serves from from high and intermediate government positions, you know, literary Craat, literary Croatian. It had to be spoken in administrative positions of officialdom. It wasn't just the Western alphabet had to be used by everybody, but you were basically prohibited from speaking with

a Serbian accent. I mean that that's stuff and stuff like that as a flex you know, I mean, it doesn't there there's no other way to characterize it. And the the failed conflict resolution model again, I mean, frankly, uh however misguided in terms of the assumptions people held in nineteen ninety one about the potentiality of a truly

global collective security. At least, thank god it was that coterie at Department of State and not this current crop of INSANE'SUS and out and out you know, mental subnormals. I mean, when I can't even imagine that would play out. But the the big believe it or not, the big question was on the U and the U and General Assembly and Security Council, like is this an international conflict

or is this a civil war? And that significance was key, okay, because the United Nations, misguided as it may have been, you know, philosophically to suggest that such a thing could

be viable. The Charter was written with an eye for restraint, in part because you know, obviously Stalin's representatives had to be placated and ironically, you know, as Yaki pointed out again and again, I mean that actually had the effect of imposing restraint upon Washington dominating the world and facilitating as social engineering regime or the officer is a collective security.

But the UN General Assembly had no they had they had no grounds to vote a resolution on a civil war as regards you know, sanctioning that the party combatants or directly or the UN Security counts let no grounds to intervene, you know, unless there was an international dimension to the conflict. You know, it would be suggested by people. One of the reasons why in the era of everybody loved to bandy genocide and accused people who didn't like

of committing it. This is arguably the Genocide Convention superseded the WIN Charter as a Djiurie grounds for intervention if one accepts international law paradigms as legitimate. But obviously, UH in nineteen ninety one it wasn't credible to talk that way. I mean, it wasn't particularly in subsequent years. But you

can't levy. You can't levy in an accusation of genocide within like once the anside of hostilities, like it's that obviously be a propaganda ployd but you know Belgrade, which to Belgrade at the time it was and really until the conclusion of hostilities, the UH, the Serbians identified as the Union of you you know, the Yuoslavian Union of Serbia and Montenegro. You know, they never claimed like, oh, we are Serbia where you know, we're creating, you know,

like an ethno national state of Serbians, mirroring Tujman. They claimed Yugoslavia is you know where the Yugoslavian government and secession is against the law. These people are engaged in. They're they're waging war on on the sovereign government of Yugoslavia, you know, which is UH, which is UH, which is

both illegal and as well as an internal affair. You know, now it's key the UH until the end The official position at Belgrade was that this is a civil war, you know, and Yugoslavia never ceased to exist, you know, and the people are claiming that it's a dead letter in the Yugoslavia's could put our our fascists, who have, you know, a racialized view of of of high politics like over dishonest. That may have been depending your perspective,

I mean it, it was it, you know. Bea never succeeded, and Servia never claimed that the US Slabbian constitution was no avoid and that we're reconstituting as a Serb republic. Criina did constitute itself as the Republic of the Republic of Serbia. But you know, this is this is important. It's not just legal eese. It had real war and peace impactfulness. But it's also the i mean, the key the key shortcoming of the United Nations and executive terms.

I'm a sorry from the fact, however much philosophically these things aren't viable. I mean, what what what what? What? What are you and Blue is gonna do? Are they gonna Are they gonna occupy I think occupy Bosnian assault the Yugoslav army with combined arms, I mean no one's

ever been able to explicate how this works. And even in situations like in Lebanon after eighty two, or the United Nations deployees you know what, the United Nations deployees permissively because all party combat and just allow it to deploy, you know, I mean, it's not you know, you can't speak of international law when it's when categorically it can't be compulsory. So it's sort of paralysis set it in. But it's also there was a broader problem that we

touched on in the first episode. If the UN to come out and said this is an international conflict just in absolute terms, it's not a civil war, you know, that would have at this time there was still a truly conciliatory posture towards the Soviet Union, which was about to dissolve, albeit but saying suddenly, this is Croatia ors a Serbia with Bosnia caught in the middle, when the Bosniaks kind of just trying to survive, It's like, well,

Cole already a me recognized the independent state of Croatia. You know, you'd essentially be sowing the seeds of a wider ethnic conflict between Germany and Russia, like each backing their client regime and a sort of a zero sum paradigm developing. I think that was underway anyway. But again, you've got to put yourself in the year nineteen ninety one. You know, this wasn't this wasn't accepted thinking. The idea was that this is sort of a blip on the

path to you know, global clicktive security arrangement. People are still seriously talking about the Bush Baker model of we're gonna, we're gonna totally the Soviet Union is gonna totally disarm its strategic nuclear forces and draw down it's conventional force divine or levels, and like we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna with draw from Germany, and like NATO basically isn't gonna exist anymore. Like this was the way people think,

not just talking. So that's important to consider, you know. And again the uh IF, I think some of the uh I think some of what was alleged in terms of ethnic cleansing and and mass rape, like organized like sexual violence, some of that was overstated. Some of it was not okay. And we're loving to use the term war crimes because said dandy so much to the floating

signifier has become meaningless. But there is direct testimony that I I from, you know, n c o s and junior officers who were witnessed to these events and they have no reason to lie about it and every reason to deny it. And I find that test somebody persuaded them. And these weren't guys to themselves who were under indictment, you know. And I think anybody doesn't believe those kind of things happen in a ross and creeze being naive, and I think everybody agrees that that kind of stuff

is horrible. But again it's like what do you It's never been clear with the people who claim that you should have the quote done something, So like what do you do? You know, you deploy the combined arms and assault the USLAV armies, like now you're at war with Serbia, Like I don't know, give us idea that somehow you can enter a combay zone, like an active conflict zone, you know, with combined arms and like be like the

police or something and people stop what they're doing. You know, like you you just become a party combatant when you do that, you know you're you're you're you're joining a gunfight that you didn't have to, you know, and that's basically it. You know, it doesn't there's not that, there's not there's not there's not some equitable resolution because oh,

they represent the United Nations. You know, it's preposterous. Now, there was a claim Bosnia Herzegovina, which I think everybody will agree was on the receiving end of the worst excesses by all by all party combatants. Under Article twenty five of the UN Charter, member states can vote to intervene in a conflict zone where to not intervene would be inconsistent with you know, like the fundamental protection human

rights and things of this sort. The language is ambiguous, But the fact of the situation in Bosnia, where arguably there was no majoritarian ethnos and even if you disagreed with the idea that you know, the Yugoslavian, the Balkan, the Third Broken War was an international conflict. Obviously whatever government had could be said to exist in Vazio Scovina had totally broken down. That would have been the best case if you were gonna rely upon United Nations legal

rationales to intervene. But again like what what would that force have been made up of? You you're gonna send like the Buddhist far in there is you got like a German army now marching in under the Office of the UN saying oh, well we're here, you know, to represent all nations. You're gonna you know, the Russians a

piece of that. You know, again, like the degree to which real politique emergent earnest but of a start that was somewhat more complicated than during the Cold War, just in terms of that kind of conflict diets potentially that we're emerging like that can't be overstated too. I mean, so then it's some of you're left with, Like even if the political will is there, even if there's some sort of operational roadmap two resolve or you know, to

enforce the cease fire, like who do you deploy? You're gonna get a bunch of You're gonna get a bunch of like third world like like dealisters from like Ecuador or to you know, to police Bosnia. I mean that's on some level. You know, there was kind of a hard lesson driven home about what a foolish move it was to destroy Europe and kind of like rob the it's constituent states a sovereignty because something like this happens,

like you need hasperg Empire interview. You know, you needed Germany intervene, or you needed Germany and a Russia to intervene and kind of decide among themselves. What's fear of influences? You know, people can say all they want, like, well, that doesn't matter if we're talking about the rule of law. It absolutely doesn't matter, you know, because like the human dimension always matters, and we're talking about human affairs. So it was this kind of paralysis that just dragged on.

And Lawrence Egelberger, I'm actually more sympathetic too than a lot of people. And I'm more simple to him as a man. I mean he's dead now, but and as well, I'm more sympathetic to him than a lot of the hoy PELOI say nasty things about him, not unlike the Kissinger. But he was under Secretary of State for a time in the Bush forty one administration. He said immediately the honesset of hostilities. Look, you've got to let this conflicts. I will punch itself out, because if you intervene, you're

just gonna upset the balance. They're gonna drag out hostilities, you know, and there isn't a solution basically, you know, the the new Croatia and the New Serbia and whatever the fate of Bosnia is, it's going to be decided on the battlefield. And obviously he was you know, raked from the cold and media like, oh, how dare you say this, You're encouraging mass reef and genocide. I mean no, Actually, exactly what Egoberger said like ended up happening in uh

N five. America intervened uh the Facilitati operations storm was is the Croatian liberation of the Crimea, which you know was the belated victory in the Homeland War for Croatia. But that was a that was only the that was only the that was America facilitated that by use of a PMC outfit called m PRI, which was incorporated essentially for that purpose, you know, for the for an operation in Croatia, which is very interesting and in the final

episode we'll get into that. But basically, you know, for all the talk about Wilberger was saying was was horrifically callous. I mean that what it came down to was what what resolved the conflict? The comics was deafly what he said, you know, the party combats exhausted their ability to wage war and UH battlefield battlefield victory and crina albeit with you know, American assistance is what resolved for all time, the the disputed or the contested UH objective that was crime.

I hope, hope people will back off of that I'm saying that I hate Serbs, what I'm saying bad things about them, or that I I've got some conceptual bias and favor of Croatia. We should talk a little bit about Slogani on the walls.

agent like in that narrative. Okay, So I'm not just like fixated on these things at a smaller scale if you're talking about if you're talking about the Yugoslavian wars or what or what you know, the the Third Balkan War at least the ninety one ninety five phase that led to the creation of an independent Croatia. Like you've got to deal with the Croatian political culture and what and basically you know what the West view of Croatia was and what tu Jaman was doing, That's what was

the dispositive variable. Okay, So like I begin with discussing their Croatian situation. Also because CROs or are like German adjacent and thus like Western adjacent, I frankly know more about them than I do Serbians. But in my defense, again, what was happening in Zagreb, and uh, it wasn't the sole approximate cause of the conflict, but it was it was the essential cause. Okay. The what Croatia did decided the course of the war and the ultimately became the

political resolution. Like where like when the shooting stopped, you know, the frontiers were established and accepted. It wasn't what Slovenian or Macedonia was doing. It wasn't what the Bosniaks were doing. Like those things had an impact. But again, like that's why, so, I mean, I would have dealt with a Serbian perspective anyway, but I thought it was especially imperative to do so for for that reason. But Melosovich himself, I mean again,

he was He was a career communistep arratchik. He rose to a general secretary positionary equivalent around nineteen eighty seven, and actually the late Reagan administration looked at him as their guy, like he was going to be like this big liberalizer like he was. Basically he was supposed to

be like the Yugoslavian garbage show off. Okay, that's one of the ways he got swept into power, was able to consolidate his authority the way that he did, you know, Like so this this kind of this exupposed facto rationalization, you know that really began in Earnest in ninety one and kind of just when it became totally irrational impunitive

during the Clinton regime. That Melosovich is like this madman like chetnik, like there's completely at odds with reality and history, Like the face he he he was this big like liberal moderate. That's how he enjoyed the kind of patronage that he did it. Uh And honestly, you know, Melissa Benches fall from grace and power within his own country.

Kastunisha was elected president on October fifth, two thousand and part of the big the big reason why Kristunika or Kostunisha, if you're give me, if I'm booksuring the pronunciation, one of the big reasons why he was able to break through is because he was a Serb nationalist and Melosovich. The big criticism Melosavich within Serbia was he turned his back on the on the Serbian refugees. He didn't care

about our people. You know, he didn't fight hard enough, you know, for the for the for the coast of our Serbs. You know, like he he wasn't this big chetnik, you know, like he was basically pragmatic. And this claim that you know, most of the most of the grossest excesses wherever one falls in their sympathy or background or whatever, I don't think I would disagree that the worst excess

is carried out by all party. Combats took place in Bosnia, Okay, and the idea that from Belgrade Melosevitch was somehow directing like the Bosnian Serbs to do his bidding. Like this is not I mean, that's not the way command authority works in a modern state. But it's also like the Bosnian Stirs might as well have been in a different country. Okay, Like I'm not saying that, you know, the the affinity

that their co ethnics had for them was misplaced. I'm not saying that at all, Like it was not misplaced, But the point is it was almost it was a totally it was a totally different socio political situation, you know, like it'd be it's it'd be like saying like Jefferson Davis was like it was ordering buddy Billy Anderson to do things. You It's like that sounds asidine, but the klan that I just raised is acidine. And people accepted this is oh most of it is this a bad guy.

And like again I think I think sometimes that's like, you know, the propaganda being distilled down into the most kind of idiots caricature of reality. But it's also you know the problem with assigning legalists legalisms and parent legalism.

Parent legalist paradigms and legalisms. The high politics, as was done at Nuremberg, is it creates these perverse narratives where they're, oh, there's there's there's command authorities who are bad actors, you know, and they're the approximate cause of conflict, and everybody within that chain of command is accountable to this bad actor.

Like this is not reality. You know. The uh I guarantee you that some of the most hardened chet knicks in uh Crina and in Bosnia and probably never even heard most of it speak in their lives, like even on the radio, you know, like he had nothing to do with their conceptual horizon other than he was like this remote like boss who in del Reid who Yeah, we like that he's Serbian. But other than that, you know,

it's it's ridiculous, you know. And it's also too. I mean, basically, if you look at the modern Serbian state under Melosovich and now, and you look at the modern Croatian state, I know too, Jaman and now, like basically everything else suggested to be this kind of like a horrible and democratic feature of Serbia or what they called Yugoslavia after the secession of Croatia and UH Slovenia. I mean those

are basically features common to Croatia. You know, there's there's what we would consider it basically chauvinus, UH, you know

nationalism that you know, characterized the party politics. There's a basic discrount, distrust of pluralism and UH casting UH candidates who talked about like, you know, a multi ethnic uh Croatia where we're reviewed as traders, you know, UH, bad relations with the West, you know, and and and admittedly they had more we're to do with what the West was doing than what Serbian Croatia were doing, but you know, consistent economic stagnation, you know, reliance on subsidies, and you

know a handful of kind of key like national industries. I mean, this is like everything they say about Serbia, like being dysfunctional. It's like a mirror image of the reality in Croatia. So I mean there's that too, like I and I mean, I'm not I'm not saying to be punitive. I got I think the Cross deserves about great people, and I respect the fact that they've resisted, you know, the the social engine regime astauantcy as they have.

But you can't you can't cast Serbian this light and say, oh, but Croatia is not like that, because they're basically mirrors of each other, like structurally, you know. And and frankly, tu Jman Uh, he was a lot different than Melosovich, like in terms of his character and in terms of like his background, like we talked about in the first episode, but he in terms of he was no more autocratic than Melosovich was, Like arguably, I mean Tujman once the

war kicked off. I yes, Tujon was elected. Yes there were fair elections in Croatia, but I don't think he could have been removed like during this you know, the State Act at war. Okay. Arguably he was like more like like Molosa, which was more susceptible you know, to like removal by due process than Tujman was. So there's I mean, there's that too, Like you can't that this attempt like other like the Serbians is is bullshit, okay.

And I mean, I I had thought that I conveyed that clearly in our previous discussions, but because apparently I didn't, I wanted our Serbian Orthodox friends to know that I take that very seriously, and I'm I'm not disdaining them or their considerations. But it's also too and the reason

why I'm Melosovich in his favor. One of the reasons why he enjoyed the incumbentcated for thirteen years, you know, like he did implement a market economy in a way that didn't completely crash the the country, you know, unlike Yelson, for example, he did tolerate multi party elections. I mean, admittedly, like the political culture was exclusively you know, kind of like Serb centric, but I mean again, that's appropriate. The national democracy there was, there was an actual opposition, you know,

they did it media access. I mean, this wasn't like all the kind of all the kind of pole stars that these m g O types claim like constitute you know, like a democratic state we approve of like he met those Okay, I mean Serbia is a hell a lot more free than israel Is, I'll tell you that much. I mean, if that's you know, if that's any if if that's the metric, you know, you can't you can't claim that it was it was like Saddam's Iraq or

like it was this dictatorship or something, you know. I mean it basically one of the reasons why again, like Reagan's people and then Bushes people. Initially Melosmitch was their guy is because he was basically doing he was basically acting like a like a post communist, the like European politician is supposed to act. You know. So this the fact he was hailed into the Hague, you know, I think, but you know, he he he died when he was on trial, and I but I thought he had quoting

himself very honorably, you know. I like, well, and we'll get into that in the in the book and episode. I think, Uh, it's about all I got for to day. Like frankly, I don't mean to be a I don't mean to be a uh F A or p h A G d O T. But I'm in a lot of pain right now. Uh go ahead, I'm sorry, Yeah, no problem at all.

The code is lowercase three T H R E E seven S c V E N number five. And not only not only will you get five percent off, but like I get a kickback from that too, as that helps my brand. To just keep that in mind. You can find out all the info on the substack. I posted up a little piece about it. You can find me on Twitter at real capital r E L R E A L underscore number seven h O M A S seven seven seven. You can always find me on

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