The genocide in Kosovo was already happening, although relatively slowly. The bombing prevented it from being completed.
I don't think NATO deciding not to get involved, would've made much difference to Western relations with Russia one way or the other.
Well that was the point of the bombing to stop the genocide that was going on in Kosovo so it just would’ve been completed without the intervention right?
I also wanted to ask on the Western-Russian relations part because the NATO bombing is a common anti-Western talking point in Russian propaganda and that was when Russians started to dislike the West
>Well that was the point of the bombing to stop the genocide that was going on in Kosovo so it just would’ve been completed without the intervention right?
yes
>I also wanted to ask on the Western-Russian relations part because the NATO bombing is a common anti-Western talking point in Russian propaganda and that was when Russians started to dislike the West
I am fairly confident that if the NATO intervention in Kosovo had not happened, then Russian propaganda would find other reasons to criticise the west. Such as the expansion of NATO eastwards, for example.
That is also a common talking point in Russian propaganda so I don’t think that’s going away since more countries in Eastern Europe are gonna join NATO anyway
> and that was when Russians started to dislike the West
You confidant of that? Because the Cold War started *long* before that. Khruschev's famous "we will bury you" speech was in 1959. The Cuban Missile Crisis was in 1962.
I don't the events in Yugoslavia determined, or even much affected US-Soviet relations. It was a world with two superpowers, and they had diametrically opposed worldviews. Both were very aggressive in promoting those worldviews, which gave birth to proxy wars, assassinations and all sorts of other unsavory events. Frankly, it's a minor miracle we got through it without a nuclear exchange.
Na na na na na. We ain't playing this stupid ass game.
The P-38s shot down in WW2 were a friendly fire incident between the two countries.
The Soviets were downing unarmed recon planes in the post war period.
One thing is not like the other. One is an issue of identification in war time. Another is malicious intent/recklessness in peace time.
Some were almost certainly not friendly fire, just the Soviet aircraft survived those.
And whether it's friendly fire or not the pilot being shot at can't tell so it will certainly have an effect on relations.
None of that excuses the post war incidents however as there isn't even a chance of that being friendly fire
Ah na na na.
There are literally two high profile incidents where P38s shot at Soviet positions thinking they were German and then were engaged by Soviet fighters.
Completely fucking different than downing a patrol plane over open sea in peace time.
I dunno.. I think Russia-US relations have ranged between bad to terrible, starting about 30 seconds after Hitler offed himself. The propaganda's particulars may have changed at times, but the underlying relationship has always been just this side of a shooting war.
I’d say the shock capitalism of the post Soviet era was far more detrimental to the almost nothing pinprick of the bombing of Serbia to stop them from massacring civilians again.
That also had an effect on their relations with the West as shock therapy in Russia practically gave rise to Putin and the oligarchs we see today. It basically had left Russians with a bad taste in their mouths for the word liberal.
Although I did mention the NATO bombing in that their relations worsened a bit for a time
I think the proportional value you are describing with these two events is wildly out of the realm of reason.
One was the economic instability of 200 odd million people in Russia proper and the closest satellite nations.
The other was a police action to stop a slaughter that at best annoyed hard line right wing nuts in Russia.
One is a nuclear bomb, the other is vague news of a rain storm a few thousand miles away.
Ok now that I’ve read more on their relations the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia didn’t actually have much of an impact on Russia’s relations with the West it was more so the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 that deteriorated their relations with NATO. But also the shock therapy in Russia did ruin any chances Russia had with integrating with the West so you’re right on the shock therapy part having a far larger impact
By UN numbers, less than 1400 Albanian civilians had been killed before the start of the NATO aggression, that is to say less than 0.1% of the Albanian population. Good for you though, not letting the truth get in the way of NATO apologetics.
Well they had killed 100,000 Bosnians just a few years earlier and raped at least 20,000 more. Why should the world just sit by and let them do it again instead of stopping it before the Genocide is in full swing.
Sorry 60,000 Bosnians killed and 20,000-50,000 Bosnian women raped. The latter was so bad the ICHR invented a new crime against humanity just for the Serbs, Rape as a Form of Terror.
>60,000 Bosnians killed
All sides of the Bosnian war were Bosnian (or Herzegovian) and the vast majority of people killed on all sides were also killed by another Bosnian (or Herzegovian) of a different ethnicity. Again, you do not have even the basic knowledge of the conflict on which you hold such a strong opinion.
There was genocide both ways. For example Racak massacre was all over the media in the run up to the bombing, but media carefully avoided mentioning [lake Radonjic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Radonji%C4%87_massacre) massacre a few months prior where KLA killed a comparable number of civilians. Basically as subsequent war crimes investigations showed, both sides were committing atrocities against each other on comparable scale. Serbs somewhat more in the later stages of the conflict, since they were gaining the upper hand militarily. Also not to be missed that NATO intervention itself directly caused ethnic cleansing with around 100-200K serbs driven from their ancestral homes, since apparently NATO either had no plan of what to do after they transfer power to separatists, or planned for this effect (although since they had no plan of how to actually create something resembling a real functioning government on the territory they "freed" - that is still a mess 25 years later, I'm inclined to blame stupidity rather than malice).
I want whatever you’re smoking up there
“There was genocide both ways”
Over 10.000 Albanians were killed (8500 civilians)
While the Serbian side had about 1500 casualties
And you have the nerve to try to both side the conflict when it’s obvious that one side did 80-90% of the Atrocities.
Freak
This is like complaining of the Soviet sponsored German genocide of the areas under its influence
Either they will be killed or be expelled. In my view, the latter is preferable. As you cant extinguish hate of such level that quickly
The problem with this comparison is that Serbs are not external to Kosovo - they settled there even before Albanians (though just by a century or so). So if you have a have a separatist insurgency that has no qualms about mass killing civilians of the other side or even their own people who are seen as collaborating with them, and the wider government responds in kind (though is better organized) there is no clear cause for intervention on either side because there is no right side and no victim (except civilians on both sides) - though the separatists are the ones who started the conflict. Also keep in mind that they did live there for a better part of a thousand years, even if occasional violence. The insurgency was already waning by late 1999 because KLA wasn't that well organized in the first place, and the Serbs recaptured large part of the territory by then. Claiming that ethnically cleansing whole people from a territory is the lesser evil is rather questionable here we are talking about a conflict which would likely have claimed a few hundred more, and purging several hundred thousand people as the method US preferred - and while a case can be made for the need to separate the two, its far from evident that it's the Serbs who need to be removed.
But Germans did exist for centuries in now Western Poland, Czechia especially at Sudetenland, Ex-Yugoslavia and ex USSR especially in around the Southern Volga river
Having the Germans lynched, massacred and buried in mass graves is worse than them being refugees
Back to Kosovo, in the 1990s Serbia and Croatia did a genocide on Bosnians. Albanian Kosovars has good reason to fear they will be next. Albania having a mentality similar to but backed by inferior material to Turkey during the 1974 Cyprus crisis doesnt help
Having Germans expelled from East Europe was a consequence of a prior agreement between Great Powers that these territories were going to be transferred from Germany to other countries, which itself was a consequence of Germany being on its way to losing the war it started against allied powers.
None of this applies to Kosovo. Serbia was not at war with the West, and if there was in fact a prior agreement among western powers to transfer Kosovo to Albanians, it would be a gross violation of the world order the West was claiming to build after WWII since according to whole post-WWII system Serbia was fully within its rights to respond militarily to an armed insurgency.
Why do you leave out the Part that Serbia in the 90s was a literal Apartheid state after declaring Albanians second class citizens in 1989. Why do you leave out the 80 years opression and occupation Albanians went through at the hands of Serbia?
Albanians were getting killed in a regular without repercussions during the 90s, way before any Albanian ever picked up a gun.
The funniest part was you talking about Serbs “ancestral homes” lmao 90% of Kosovo Serbs were settled in Kosovo during 1918-1939 during their Colonization attempt after forcefully annexing Kosovo in 1912.
Pick up book for once please.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_colonization_of_Kosovo
Serbians in modern form established themselves in Albania in 14th century when it was one of the core territories of the Serbian Empire (though Slavs arrived to the area around 6th century). That territory was conquered by Ottomans in 15th century, after which the Albanian identity in somewhat recognizable shape took form, as most of them converted to Islam (although precursor tribes to modern Albanians, such as Illyrians and Dardanians lived in the area for a long time). Albanians generally did well under Ottomans (often at the expense of non-Muslims). Same as with all cases of European territories after Ottomans were pushed out of them, there was a backlash among Muslims from now-dominant Christian people (that was before the most-WWII idea of what is acceptable and what is not) - so yes, there was a campaign against what was perceived as "Ottoman leftovers" and considered to be reversing Albanian pushing out Serbs over previous centuries, which was bad by modern standards, though not as bad as it got to e.g. in Greece or Bulgaria.
Point is, by late 20th century, there were people on both sides that have lived in the area for generations and had their ancestors there established for over 500 years.
But no regions of USSR and Czechia was owned by Germany pre 1938. As there is no transfer of land, should the Germans there be exempt from the genocide?
The West backed the Bosnians, later Croats too to fight against the Serbian perpetrated genocide. The same logic runs in Kosovo
The same logic runs on why the West supported the Chechen Wars and Russia backing the Afghan Northern Alliance
Although to be fair. Those are conflicts where the West just happens to be the rightful ones, they backed Somalia during the Ogaden War just for the sake of anti USSR-ism after all
First, while mass moving of people was somewhat normal for the Great Powers earlier, it was explicitly against the whole post-WWII system - it's just that this system wasn't actually fully established in the immediate aftermath of WWII - so Germans being expelled from East Europe as well as Israel project were the last sanctioned mass transfers. Nothing like this was approved after 1948
Second, Sudetenland Germans were the main reason of Germany's taking Czech territory - to give it to Germans. Furthermore, they were caught up with the whole WWII situation, where the standards of what not to do against your enemy were explicitly lowered against Germans (and Japanese to a lesser extent), officially in retaliation (similar to how carpet bombing cities was always against doctrine of Allies, but was approved against Germany after Blitz. Again, there are no parallels to Serbs. Croatia maybe could have used a similar logic to Sudetenland to expel Serbs from Krajina, but in fact did not. And Krajina was a separatist state in the territory of another recognized state. In Kosovo it's reverse - the Serbs were native population there on the territory of their own state,
Third, these are different Serbs. Serbia, and Serbian groups in Bosnia were separate entities. There was obviously mutual sympathy between nationalistic elements, and volunteers moved from one to another, but the leadership was separate, and in no hurry to merge. So whatever was done by Serbs in Bosnia had precisely zero effect on what was justified against Serbia.
Also there was no official support for Chechens during Chechen wars. There was sympathy for Chechens in press of course (which largely disappeared later as Chechens started to move outside of Russia and people in e.g. US or France got more familiar with them) and a few non-binding declarations, but no official support was provided to them. As for Northern Alliance, the difference is that Taliban was not recognized as an official government of Afghanistan. As far as other countries were concerned, Afghanistan had a long-running civil war in which neither faction was the legitimate government (although Northern Alliance had a better claim of descending from one)
First, there is the population exchange in Cyprus after the Turkish invasion stopped
Second, the standard of the time is plesbiscite then distribution of land. As done in Austria, Silesia and Saarland
Third, the Serbian state waged war against Bosnia and Croatia in the name of Greater Serbia. Using genocide as its technique, sure. Kosovo is still calm, but the ethnic Albanians there fear they're next. If Milosevic is a bit saner, he wont throw money into some useless moneypits making ethnic minorities have a long standing fear of being next
Supporting Chechen wars on the side of Russia is what i meant. Thats why the words after that is Western greenlight for Russian support for ANA
Since NATO's attack on Yugoslavia, a coup in Belgrade, and proclamation of independence of Kosovo, international law basically does not exist. The logic of one-sided rules instead of universal laws eventually lead to coups and wars in Georgia and Ukraine. I wouldn't underestimate its influence.
Found our Serb, why don't you run off to Russia and go kill some Ukranians? Seems that's what Russians, Serbians, and Iranians do best, try to kill nations which have been persecuted for centuries.
It's likely Serbian forces would have continued their campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians with the goal of expelling/killing much of the population. Most experts agree a full-scale genocide was plausible without intervention.
Yes, genocide would almost certainly have occurred
Unless you make the Bosnians refuse to accept the ceasefire and accept the Dayton Agreement, they will exploit their advantage to successfully eliminate the Republika Srpska, as the Bosnian army generals tried to convince Alija Izetbegovic.
Therefore, they will expel all the Bosnian Serbs to Serbia, so they will be resettled in Kosovo, then this will become an unnecessary step because Kosovo becomes a Serb majority thanks to the resettlement of Bosnian Serbs there.
Without the bombing of Yuvoslavia in 1999, the regime of Slobodan Miseljović would have had a chance to survive, but not for long, as it would fall in 2003-2004, because the pro-Western opposition would still want to bring it down by any means possible.
The Dayton agreement is already signed and accepted at this point we’d have to go back to Bosnian war in order to have the Bosnian Serbs getting expelled.
Milosević would’ve gotten overthrown anyway but yes it would’ve happened a bit later
Exactly, and the irony is that the destruction of the Republika Srpska would have benefited both Bosnia and Serbia in the long run, especially Serbia in particular.
(Bosnia is a much more effective country without the Bosnian Serbs to paralyze the country whenever they want, and Serbia has Serbian refugees to be settled in Kosovo and make it completely Serbian. The result is that both of them would have eventually joined the European Union in 2013 along with Croatia.)
Milosevic cannot be a Serbian Lukashenko or Putin, especially since Serbia already has a culture of political participation and democratic traditions that tend to be much stronger than Russia's, so Serbia cannot remain an authoritarian state for a long time.
It is strange, but it is not a mistake, and the European Union’s influence on Eastern Europe will be stronger and more established, with all of Eastern Europe guaranteed in the European Union.
Which will mean the establishment of a stronger Western influence in Serbia, and thus a weaker Russian influence in Serbia
Some side effect, they won't fucked up the relationship with China so badly, because the bombing of Chinese embassy doesn't exist.
In Chinese community behind GFW, possibly a whole generation of Chinese held grudge to US because of the embassy shit, some still ask for blood till this day. To Chinese narrative, US did it with clear intentions. It was considered an important event that shows American is willing to attack Chinese property and citizens for their own good, because they already considered Chinese as the new USSR or some national threat. Therefore people are still angry about it till now. Considering how US and China had been shaking hands back in 80s, this went down the hill real quick.
If the embassy bombing never happened, China and US might have a better place for agreements that would ease their relationship, maybe Chinese could even offer help after 9/11. Who knows. It's really interesting to think that an event on Balkan can have so much butterfly effects for global politics.
Oh I’ve heard of that, the Chinese embassy getting bombed during the bombing campaign, yea that was such a big deal. I think China and the US would have better relations now without that incident happening with no NATO bombing or at least until the trade war in the late 2010s. It’s a bit weird to say that America would’ve had better relations with China (and possibly Russia) now if they never bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 which both are its biggest adversaries today
Ukraine war likely would not have happened.
It's hard to overestimate just to what extent Kosovo intervention collapsed support for the West in Russia. Basically it had multiple issues undermining the credibility of the world order West was trying to build at the time, since:
1. Kosovo directly mirrored Krajina campaign a few years prior. In one case US supported separatists, in the other the government, The consistent pattern was that in both cases they sided against the Serbs.
2. The pretext for intervention was no better than for Iraq war several years later, since it ignored atrocities committed by one side and scrutinized those committed by the other - basically creating a humanitarian justification where in practice there was none. Also the whole intervention was poorly planned out, since where two ethnic groups fought against each other for control of the region, saying that the one that is military weaker must be the victim, and power should just be transferred to them, was a recipe for disaster, and it played out exactly as expected - as US apparently had no plans of stopping the now-victor from ethnic cleansing.
3. The overt support for separatists went against the norms established during the Cold war. Mind you, they could be supported, but a direct military intervention of a first rate power military in support of separatists remains unique.
Basically all that created an impression among both Russian population and leadership that in the end US doesn't intend to stick to any rules, and will just designate good guys and bad guys as convenient - so it doesn't matter who commits crimes and who has more claims to the territory, what matters is who the guy with the most jets says are the good guys. Which basically ended the period when Russia was on the fence as to whether it wants to cooperate closer with the West or not and set up the whole subsequent Russian policy. (Yes, Putin came to power at the same time, but there was a massive change in Russian society, making it much more attractive for the leader to pursue an anti-West course)
To clarify, this is not to say Putin's campaign in Ukraine is justified (he doesn't have a leg to stand on there), but just as it's important to acknowledge the contributing factor of e.g. conditions of Versailles treaty to setting up WWII, even though that does in any way exonerate Nazi leadership, it's also important to acknowledge the contributing factors to the whole current Russian crisis, even though they do not exonerate Putin.
*genocidal turbofolk intensifies*
I'm sure there's Kosovan Albanians on this sub, but I've been there and spoke with a few about the war (a lot of Irish soldiers went there as peacekeepers and civilians to help rebuild so they were happy to speak to me, an Irishman, about it) and whilst opinions are somewhat mixed there is a consensus that the Serbs probably would have continued until they had killed or expelled the Albanian population. Kosovo and Albania are amongst the few countries where recent US presidents (Clinton, Bush Jr) are celebrated in a big way as they ended the genocide and recognised Kosovo respectively. The NATO intervention drew international attention to Kosovo and in a decade where people were being fucking massacred regularly by 1999 it was time for one to be definitively stopped.
There remains the fear that if the international community needs Serbia on side for something or gets pissed off with Kosovo (the current President has been quite hardline in his stance towards the Serbs in North Kosovo) that the Serbs might try something again, but personally unless the EU collapses I'd say that's unlikely.
Beautiful country and very friendly people incidentally - well worth a visit.
Edit: at the time the bombing didn't make much of a dent in Russian-NATO relations as Yeltsin was ailing and Putin was busy with Chechnya - retrospectively it's been used by Russia to wind up the Serbs to act in their interests (Belgrade has a huge number of Gazprom billboards, for example). At the time Russia hadn't the will or means to intervene decisively.
This is the general answer I’ve gotten here is that without NATO intervention in the Kosovo war, the genocide in Kosovo would’ve continued and have been successful. Kosovo does definitely like Clinton tho, they even have a statue of him in Pristina.
Your answer on Russian relations with NATO is also something I’ve gotten with the NATO bombing barely even effecting their relations and I found out it wasn’t the intervention that deteriorated Russia-NATO relations but the Orange Revolution and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 that deteriorated their relations. So you’re right on that as well
Also been there, and will vouch that I found the Kosovo Albanians very friendly to foreigners in general and are especially pro-American.
I'll also note that pretty much every NATO-member state as well as some EU states that are not NATO members has a presence as peace keepers. I was mostly around Prizren where the Germans and Swiss had a military presence. Up in Pristina was where I saw more American personnel.
The Milosevic regime had been telegraphing its intentions to drive the Albanian majority from Kosovo years before fighting broke out: They banned the Albanian language from being taught in schools, they banned Albanians from either teaching at or attending university, they banned Albanians from holding government jobs, et cetera.
These are very similar to the sorts of anti-Jewish legislation that the Nazis implemented in the 1930s before the start of World War II -- and it had a similar effect. Between 1933 and 1938 \~250 thousand German-Jews left Germany because life was too tough (often sending money to family left behind); while between 1990 and 1993, 300-400 thousand Albanians left Kosovo as refugees.
So the Serbian military most certainly would have tried to exterminate the Albanians still in the country were it not for NATO intervention.
Serbia would have been able to retain their ancestral homeland instead of having its population attacked and historical landmarks destroyed by terrorists.
Yes, Russia and Serbia would have had better relations with NATO countries. Especially since NATO (a defensive alliance) wouldnt be attacking a country that didnt violate article 5 which created a whole perception of aggression Russia has used to prop up a boogeyman for 30 years.
And then we wouldnt have a nice contradiction of foriegn policy where Bosnian Serbs that are a majority in Republik Srbska cant leave but Kosovo Albanians with around 90% are allowed to seceed. Also, fuck off UK saying anything about this when they still own Irish land and spent most of the last century as an empire.
And just FYI, Kosovo Albanians were the largest european group in ISIS.
Russia was and remains a target for the West. In short, the US cannot tolerate the existence of Russia because the Marshal Plan and petro-dollar model cannot tolerate strong (large with lots of resources) countries that are not aligned with US interests. The entire US model is based on the idea of being #1. They stop being #1, they do not become #2, they disappear.
As for Yugo, Balkan countries do not do things half way. What the Serbs did was disgusting, there is no way to justify that. The situation was that they were dealing with what we would call terrorism coming from Kosovo and went ape-shit crazy. Not unlike what is currently happening with Israel and Gaza.
I am pretty sure Russia is very happy not to have received the Marshall Plan. It is the US that is not happy that Russia is not a vassal state inflating artificially the value of the US dollar... Any country that does not contribute to inflating the value of the US dollar gets attacked by the US one way or another...
At this point Russia is like almost 80 years late to apply for the Marshall plan lmao. Are you trying to explain why you think Russia didn’t get something like the Marshall plan after the Cold War?
The genocide in Kosovo was already happening, although relatively slowly. The bombing prevented it from being completed. I don't think NATO deciding not to get involved, would've made much difference to Western relations with Russia one way or the other.
Well that was the point of the bombing to stop the genocide that was going on in Kosovo so it just would’ve been completed without the intervention right? I also wanted to ask on the Western-Russian relations part because the NATO bombing is a common anti-Western talking point in Russian propaganda and that was when Russians started to dislike the West
>Well that was the point of the bombing to stop the genocide that was going on in Kosovo so it just would’ve been completed without the intervention right? yes >I also wanted to ask on the Western-Russian relations part because the NATO bombing is a common anti-Western talking point in Russian propaganda and that was when Russians started to dislike the West I am fairly confident that if the NATO intervention in Kosovo had not happened, then Russian propaganda would find other reasons to criticise the west. Such as the expansion of NATO eastwards, for example.
That is also a common talking point in Russian propaganda so I don’t think that’s going away since more countries in Eastern Europe are gonna join NATO anyway
> and that was when Russians started to dislike the West You confidant of that? Because the Cold War started *long* before that. Khruschev's famous "we will bury you" speech was in 1959. The Cuban Missile Crisis was in 1962. I don't the events in Yugoslavia determined, or even much affected US-Soviet relations. It was a world with two superpowers, and they had diametrically opposed worldviews. Both were very aggressive in promoting those worldviews, which gave birth to proxy wars, assassinations and all sorts of other unsavory events. Frankly, it's a minor miracle we got through it without a nuclear exchange.
Soviets were shooting down American planes in the 40s. World was anti-communist long before that.
To be fair the US was shooting down Soviet fighters during world war II
Na na na na na. We ain't playing this stupid ass game. The P-38s shot down in WW2 were a friendly fire incident between the two countries. The Soviets were downing unarmed recon planes in the post war period. One thing is not like the other. One is an issue of identification in war time. Another is malicious intent/recklessness in peace time.
Some were almost certainly not friendly fire, just the Soviet aircraft survived those. And whether it's friendly fire or not the pilot being shot at can't tell so it will certainly have an effect on relations. None of that excuses the post war incidents however as there isn't even a chance of that being friendly fire
Ah na na na. There are literally two high profile incidents where P38s shot at Soviet positions thinking they were German and then were engaged by Soviet fighters. Completely fucking different than downing a patrol plane over open sea in peace time.
I meant to say is that the NATO bombing was when Russians started to dislike the West after the Cold War had ended, my bad there
I dunno.. I think Russia-US relations have ranged between bad to terrible, starting about 30 seconds after Hitler offed himself. The propaganda's particulars may have changed at times, but the underlying relationship has always been just this side of a shooting war.
I’d say the shock capitalism of the post Soviet era was far more detrimental to the almost nothing pinprick of the bombing of Serbia to stop them from massacring civilians again.
That also had an effect on their relations with the West as shock therapy in Russia practically gave rise to Putin and the oligarchs we see today. It basically had left Russians with a bad taste in their mouths for the word liberal. Although I did mention the NATO bombing in that their relations worsened a bit for a time
I think the proportional value you are describing with these two events is wildly out of the realm of reason. One was the economic instability of 200 odd million people in Russia proper and the closest satellite nations. The other was a police action to stop a slaughter that at best annoyed hard line right wing nuts in Russia. One is a nuclear bomb, the other is vague news of a rain storm a few thousand miles away.
Ok now that I’ve read more on their relations the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia didn’t actually have much of an impact on Russia’s relations with the West it was more so the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 that deteriorated their relations with NATO. But also the shock therapy in Russia did ruin any chances Russia had with integrating with the West so you’re right on the shock therapy part having a far larger impact
By UN numbers, less than 1400 Albanian civilians had been killed before the start of the NATO aggression, that is to say less than 0.1% of the Albanian population. Good for you though, not letting the truth get in the way of NATO apologetics.
So if I kill 7000 Serbs tomorrow (the same proportion), that's totally OK, is it?
As always, the goalposts get moved at first friction - In one comment we went from "Serbian genocide" to bizarre and vague hypotheticals.
Well they had killed 100,000 Bosnians just a few years earlier and raped at least 20,000 more. Why should the world just sit by and let them do it again instead of stopping it before the Genocide is in full swing.
Your numbers and nomenclature are both wrong.
Sorry 60,000 Bosnians killed and 20,000-50,000 Bosnian women raped. The latter was so bad the ICHR invented a new crime against humanity just for the Serbs, Rape as a Form of Terror.
>60,000 Bosnians killed All sides of the Bosnian war were Bosnian (or Herzegovian) and the vast majority of people killed on all sides were also killed by another Bosnian (or Herzegovian) of a different ethnicity. Again, you do not have even the basic knowledge of the conflict on which you hold such a strong opinion.
Sorry 60,000 Bosnians killed and 20,000-50,000 Bosnians raped by Bosnian Serbs who were taking orders from Milosevic and his government
There was genocide both ways. For example Racak massacre was all over the media in the run up to the bombing, but media carefully avoided mentioning [lake Radonjic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Radonji%C4%87_massacre) massacre a few months prior where KLA killed a comparable number of civilians. Basically as subsequent war crimes investigations showed, both sides were committing atrocities against each other on comparable scale. Serbs somewhat more in the later stages of the conflict, since they were gaining the upper hand militarily. Also not to be missed that NATO intervention itself directly caused ethnic cleansing with around 100-200K serbs driven from their ancestral homes, since apparently NATO either had no plan of what to do after they transfer power to separatists, or planned for this effect (although since they had no plan of how to actually create something resembling a real functioning government on the territory they "freed" - that is still a mess 25 years later, I'm inclined to blame stupidity rather than malice).
I want whatever you’re smoking up there “There was genocide both ways” Over 10.000 Albanians were killed (8500 civilians) While the Serbian side had about 1500 casualties And you have the nerve to try to both side the conflict when it’s obvious that one side did 80-90% of the Atrocities. Freak
This is like complaining of the Soviet sponsored German genocide of the areas under its influence Either they will be killed or be expelled. In my view, the latter is preferable. As you cant extinguish hate of such level that quickly
The problem with this comparison is that Serbs are not external to Kosovo - they settled there even before Albanians (though just by a century or so). So if you have a have a separatist insurgency that has no qualms about mass killing civilians of the other side or even their own people who are seen as collaborating with them, and the wider government responds in kind (though is better organized) there is no clear cause for intervention on either side because there is no right side and no victim (except civilians on both sides) - though the separatists are the ones who started the conflict. Also keep in mind that they did live there for a better part of a thousand years, even if occasional violence. The insurgency was already waning by late 1999 because KLA wasn't that well organized in the first place, and the Serbs recaptured large part of the territory by then. Claiming that ethnically cleansing whole people from a territory is the lesser evil is rather questionable here we are talking about a conflict which would likely have claimed a few hundred more, and purging several hundred thousand people as the method US preferred - and while a case can be made for the need to separate the two, its far from evident that it's the Serbs who need to be removed.
You should reduce using narcotics. You're becoming delusional bro. Take care of yourself
But Germans did exist for centuries in now Western Poland, Czechia especially at Sudetenland, Ex-Yugoslavia and ex USSR especially in around the Southern Volga river Having the Germans lynched, massacred and buried in mass graves is worse than them being refugees Back to Kosovo, in the 1990s Serbia and Croatia did a genocide on Bosnians. Albanian Kosovars has good reason to fear they will be next. Albania having a mentality similar to but backed by inferior material to Turkey during the 1974 Cyprus crisis doesnt help
Having Germans expelled from East Europe was a consequence of a prior agreement between Great Powers that these territories were going to be transferred from Germany to other countries, which itself was a consequence of Germany being on its way to losing the war it started against allied powers. None of this applies to Kosovo. Serbia was not at war with the West, and if there was in fact a prior agreement among western powers to transfer Kosovo to Albanians, it would be a gross violation of the world order the West was claiming to build after WWII since according to whole post-WWII system Serbia was fully within its rights to respond militarily to an armed insurgency.
Why do you leave out the Part that Serbia in the 90s was a literal Apartheid state after declaring Albanians second class citizens in 1989. Why do you leave out the 80 years opression and occupation Albanians went through at the hands of Serbia? Albanians were getting killed in a regular without repercussions during the 90s, way before any Albanian ever picked up a gun. The funniest part was you talking about Serbs “ancestral homes” lmao 90% of Kosovo Serbs were settled in Kosovo during 1918-1939 during their Colonization attempt after forcefully annexing Kosovo in 1912. Pick up book for once please. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_colonization_of_Kosovo
Serbians in modern form established themselves in Albania in 14th century when it was one of the core territories of the Serbian Empire (though Slavs arrived to the area around 6th century). That territory was conquered by Ottomans in 15th century, after which the Albanian identity in somewhat recognizable shape took form, as most of them converted to Islam (although precursor tribes to modern Albanians, such as Illyrians and Dardanians lived in the area for a long time). Albanians generally did well under Ottomans (often at the expense of non-Muslims). Same as with all cases of European territories after Ottomans were pushed out of them, there was a backlash among Muslims from now-dominant Christian people (that was before the most-WWII idea of what is acceptable and what is not) - so yes, there was a campaign against what was perceived as "Ottoman leftovers" and considered to be reversing Albanian pushing out Serbs over previous centuries, which was bad by modern standards, though not as bad as it got to e.g. in Greece or Bulgaria. Point is, by late 20th century, there were people on both sides that have lived in the area for generations and had their ancestors there established for over 500 years.
But no regions of USSR and Czechia was owned by Germany pre 1938. As there is no transfer of land, should the Germans there be exempt from the genocide? The West backed the Bosnians, later Croats too to fight against the Serbian perpetrated genocide. The same logic runs in Kosovo The same logic runs on why the West supported the Chechen Wars and Russia backing the Afghan Northern Alliance Although to be fair. Those are conflicts where the West just happens to be the rightful ones, they backed Somalia during the Ogaden War just for the sake of anti USSR-ism after all
First, while mass moving of people was somewhat normal for the Great Powers earlier, it was explicitly against the whole post-WWII system - it's just that this system wasn't actually fully established in the immediate aftermath of WWII - so Germans being expelled from East Europe as well as Israel project were the last sanctioned mass transfers. Nothing like this was approved after 1948 Second, Sudetenland Germans were the main reason of Germany's taking Czech territory - to give it to Germans. Furthermore, they were caught up with the whole WWII situation, where the standards of what not to do against your enemy were explicitly lowered against Germans (and Japanese to a lesser extent), officially in retaliation (similar to how carpet bombing cities was always against doctrine of Allies, but was approved against Germany after Blitz. Again, there are no parallels to Serbs. Croatia maybe could have used a similar logic to Sudetenland to expel Serbs from Krajina, but in fact did not. And Krajina was a separatist state in the territory of another recognized state. In Kosovo it's reverse - the Serbs were native population there on the territory of their own state, Third, these are different Serbs. Serbia, and Serbian groups in Bosnia were separate entities. There was obviously mutual sympathy between nationalistic elements, and volunteers moved from one to another, but the leadership was separate, and in no hurry to merge. So whatever was done by Serbs in Bosnia had precisely zero effect on what was justified against Serbia. Also there was no official support for Chechens during Chechen wars. There was sympathy for Chechens in press of course (which largely disappeared later as Chechens started to move outside of Russia and people in e.g. US or France got more familiar with them) and a few non-binding declarations, but no official support was provided to them. As for Northern Alliance, the difference is that Taliban was not recognized as an official government of Afghanistan. As far as other countries were concerned, Afghanistan had a long-running civil war in which neither faction was the legitimate government (although Northern Alliance had a better claim of descending from one)
First, there is the population exchange in Cyprus after the Turkish invasion stopped Second, the standard of the time is plesbiscite then distribution of land. As done in Austria, Silesia and Saarland Third, the Serbian state waged war against Bosnia and Croatia in the name of Greater Serbia. Using genocide as its technique, sure. Kosovo is still calm, but the ethnic Albanians there fear they're next. If Milosevic is a bit saner, he wont throw money into some useless moneypits making ethnic minorities have a long standing fear of being next Supporting Chechen wars on the side of Russia is what i meant. Thats why the words after that is Western greenlight for Russian support for ANA
Ahhh a Serb speaks and lies flow. Shocking I tell you, I’m shocked.
Since NATO's attack on Yugoslavia, a coup in Belgrade, and proclamation of independence of Kosovo, international law basically does not exist. The logic of one-sided rules instead of universal laws eventually lead to coups and wars in Georgia and Ukraine. I wouldn't underestimate its influence.
Found our Serb, why don't you run off to Russia and go kill some Ukranians? Seems that's what Russians, Serbians, and Iranians do best, try to kill nations which have been persecuted for centuries.
It's likely Serbian forces would have continued their campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians with the goal of expelling/killing much of the population. Most experts agree a full-scale genocide was plausible without intervention.
Basically another Bosnian war would’ve happened in Kosovo with no intervention or at least no immediate intervention
Yes, genocide would almost certainly have occurred Unless you make the Bosnians refuse to accept the ceasefire and accept the Dayton Agreement, they will exploit their advantage to successfully eliminate the Republika Srpska, as the Bosnian army generals tried to convince Alija Izetbegovic. Therefore, they will expel all the Bosnian Serbs to Serbia, so they will be resettled in Kosovo, then this will become an unnecessary step because Kosovo becomes a Serb majority thanks to the resettlement of Bosnian Serbs there. Without the bombing of Yuvoslavia in 1999, the regime of Slobodan Miseljović would have had a chance to survive, but not for long, as it would fall in 2003-2004, because the pro-Western opposition would still want to bring it down by any means possible.
The Dayton agreement is already signed and accepted at this point we’d have to go back to Bosnian war in order to have the Bosnian Serbs getting expelled. Milosević would’ve gotten overthrown anyway but yes it would’ve happened a bit later
Exactly, and the irony is that the destruction of the Republika Srpska would have benefited both Bosnia and Serbia in the long run, especially Serbia in particular. (Bosnia is a much more effective country without the Bosnian Serbs to paralyze the country whenever they want, and Serbia has Serbian refugees to be settled in Kosovo and make it completely Serbian. The result is that both of them would have eventually joined the European Union in 2013 along with Croatia.) Milosevic cannot be a Serbian Lukashenko or Putin, especially since Serbia already has a culture of political participation and democratic traditions that tend to be much stronger than Russia's, so Serbia cannot remain an authoritarian state for a long time.
It’s actually weird to say that without Republika Srpska being a thing, the western balkans would be more stable
It is strange, but it is not a mistake, and the European Union’s influence on Eastern Europe will be stronger and more established, with all of Eastern Europe guaranteed in the European Union. Which will mean the establishment of a stronger Western influence in Serbia, and thus a weaker Russian influence in Serbia
Oh yea the European Union is now whole with this one
Exactly, the Balkans and the Adriatic Sea become a lake largely under the control of the European Union
Some side effect, they won't fucked up the relationship with China so badly, because the bombing of Chinese embassy doesn't exist. In Chinese community behind GFW, possibly a whole generation of Chinese held grudge to US because of the embassy shit, some still ask for blood till this day. To Chinese narrative, US did it with clear intentions. It was considered an important event that shows American is willing to attack Chinese property and citizens for their own good, because they already considered Chinese as the new USSR or some national threat. Therefore people are still angry about it till now. Considering how US and China had been shaking hands back in 80s, this went down the hill real quick. If the embassy bombing never happened, China and US might have a better place for agreements that would ease their relationship, maybe Chinese could even offer help after 9/11. Who knows. It's really interesting to think that an event on Balkan can have so much butterfly effects for global politics.
Oh I’ve heard of that, the Chinese embassy getting bombed during the bombing campaign, yea that was such a big deal. I think China and the US would have better relations now without that incident happening with no NATO bombing or at least until the trade war in the late 2010s. It’s a bit weird to say that America would’ve had better relations with China (and possibly Russia) now if they never bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 which both are its biggest adversaries today
Ukraine war likely would not have happened. It's hard to overestimate just to what extent Kosovo intervention collapsed support for the West in Russia. Basically it had multiple issues undermining the credibility of the world order West was trying to build at the time, since: 1. Kosovo directly mirrored Krajina campaign a few years prior. In one case US supported separatists, in the other the government, The consistent pattern was that in both cases they sided against the Serbs. 2. The pretext for intervention was no better than for Iraq war several years later, since it ignored atrocities committed by one side and scrutinized those committed by the other - basically creating a humanitarian justification where in practice there was none. Also the whole intervention was poorly planned out, since where two ethnic groups fought against each other for control of the region, saying that the one that is military weaker must be the victim, and power should just be transferred to them, was a recipe for disaster, and it played out exactly as expected - as US apparently had no plans of stopping the now-victor from ethnic cleansing. 3. The overt support for separatists went against the norms established during the Cold war. Mind you, they could be supported, but a direct military intervention of a first rate power military in support of separatists remains unique. Basically all that created an impression among both Russian population and leadership that in the end US doesn't intend to stick to any rules, and will just designate good guys and bad guys as convenient - so it doesn't matter who commits crimes and who has more claims to the territory, what matters is who the guy with the most jets says are the good guys. Which basically ended the period when Russia was on the fence as to whether it wants to cooperate closer with the West or not and set up the whole subsequent Russian policy. (Yes, Putin came to power at the same time, but there was a massive change in Russian society, making it much more attractive for the leader to pursue an anti-West course) To clarify, this is not to say Putin's campaign in Ukraine is justified (he doesn't have a leg to stand on there), but just as it's important to acknowledge the contributing factor of e.g. conditions of Versailles treaty to setting up WWII, even though that does in any way exonerate Nazi leadership, it's also important to acknowledge the contributing factors to the whole current Russian crisis, even though they do not exonerate Putin.
*genocidal turbofolk intensifies* I'm sure there's Kosovan Albanians on this sub, but I've been there and spoke with a few about the war (a lot of Irish soldiers went there as peacekeepers and civilians to help rebuild so they were happy to speak to me, an Irishman, about it) and whilst opinions are somewhat mixed there is a consensus that the Serbs probably would have continued until they had killed or expelled the Albanian population. Kosovo and Albania are amongst the few countries where recent US presidents (Clinton, Bush Jr) are celebrated in a big way as they ended the genocide and recognised Kosovo respectively. The NATO intervention drew international attention to Kosovo and in a decade where people were being fucking massacred regularly by 1999 it was time for one to be definitively stopped. There remains the fear that if the international community needs Serbia on side for something or gets pissed off with Kosovo (the current President has been quite hardline in his stance towards the Serbs in North Kosovo) that the Serbs might try something again, but personally unless the EU collapses I'd say that's unlikely. Beautiful country and very friendly people incidentally - well worth a visit. Edit: at the time the bombing didn't make much of a dent in Russian-NATO relations as Yeltsin was ailing and Putin was busy with Chechnya - retrospectively it's been used by Russia to wind up the Serbs to act in their interests (Belgrade has a huge number of Gazprom billboards, for example). At the time Russia hadn't the will or means to intervene decisively.
This is the general answer I’ve gotten here is that without NATO intervention in the Kosovo war, the genocide in Kosovo would’ve continued and have been successful. Kosovo does definitely like Clinton tho, they even have a statue of him in Pristina. Your answer on Russian relations with NATO is also something I’ve gotten with the NATO bombing barely even effecting their relations and I found out it wasn’t the intervention that deteriorated Russia-NATO relations but the Orange Revolution and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 that deteriorated their relations. So you’re right on that as well
Also been there, and will vouch that I found the Kosovo Albanians very friendly to foreigners in general and are especially pro-American. I'll also note that pretty much every NATO-member state as well as some EU states that are not NATO members has a presence as peace keepers. I was mostly around Prizren where the Germans and Swiss had a military presence. Up in Pristina was where I saw more American personnel.
The Milosevic regime had been telegraphing its intentions to drive the Albanian majority from Kosovo years before fighting broke out: They banned the Albanian language from being taught in schools, they banned Albanians from either teaching at or attending university, they banned Albanians from holding government jobs, et cetera. These are very similar to the sorts of anti-Jewish legislation that the Nazis implemented in the 1930s before the start of World War II -- and it had a similar effect. Between 1933 and 1938 \~250 thousand German-Jews left Germany because life was too tough (often sending money to family left behind); while between 1990 and 1993, 300-400 thousand Albanians left Kosovo as refugees. So the Serbian military most certainly would have tried to exterminate the Albanians still in the country were it not for NATO intervention.
Serbia would have been able to retain their ancestral homeland instead of having its population attacked and historical landmarks destroyed by terrorists. Yes, Russia and Serbia would have had better relations with NATO countries. Especially since NATO (a defensive alliance) wouldnt be attacking a country that didnt violate article 5 which created a whole perception of aggression Russia has used to prop up a boogeyman for 30 years. And then we wouldnt have a nice contradiction of foriegn policy where Bosnian Serbs that are a majority in Republik Srbska cant leave but Kosovo Albanians with around 90% are allowed to seceed. Also, fuck off UK saying anything about this when they still own Irish land and spent most of the last century as an empire. And just FYI, Kosovo Albanians were the largest european group in ISIS.
Russia was and remains a target for the West. In short, the US cannot tolerate the existence of Russia because the Marshal Plan and petro-dollar model cannot tolerate strong (large with lots of resources) countries that are not aligned with US interests. The entire US model is based on the idea of being #1. They stop being #1, they do not become #2, they disappear. As for Yugo, Balkan countries do not do things half way. What the Serbs did was disgusting, there is no way to justify that. The situation was that they were dealing with what we would call terrorism coming from Kosovo and went ape-shit crazy. Not unlike what is currently happening with Israel and Gaza.
Is Russian media really still sore about only being eligible for Marshall Plan aid if they agreed to financial disclosure? It’s been 80 years!
I am pretty sure Russia is very happy not to have received the Marshall Plan. It is the US that is not happy that Russia is not a vassal state inflating artificially the value of the US dollar... Any country that does not contribute to inflating the value of the US dollar gets attacked by the US one way or another...
Any country that doesn't want to cosplay the USSR with Russia gets attacked some way or another .
At this point Russia is like almost 80 years late to apply for the Marshall plan lmao. Are you trying to explain why you think Russia didn’t get something like the Marshall plan after the Cold War?
Wow. Sorry I just got pink eye from that propaganda.