This post was inspired by Uncouth Barbarian’s Polis project—more specifically, the recently discussed questions of religion and ethnicity in the founding of a polis. The story of Yugoslavia is a deep well of insight to draw from in this regard, as well as with respect to other valuable lessons in founding—and preserving—a nation or polis more generally. If you enjoy this post and are interested in questions concerning the success, failure, and formation of city-states and nations, I highly recommend subscribing to Uncouth Barbarian’s Substack as well.
The occasions and origins of disturbances - occasions which encourage the attitude of mind, and lead to the pursuit of the objects, which have just been mentioned - may be counted, from one point of view, as seven, but from another as more than that number. Two of these occasions (profit and honour) are identical with two of the objects which have just been mentioned; but when considered as occasions they act in a different way. As objects, profit and honour provoke dissension because (as we have just noted) men want to get them themselves: as occasions, they lead to dissension because men see other persons getting a larger share - some justly and some unjustly - than they themselves get. Other occasions, besides profit and honour, are insolence; fear; the presence of some form of superiority; contempt; or a disproportionate increase in some part of the state. Four other occasions leading to dissension - but in a different way [i.e. incidentally, and not in themselves] are election intrigues; wilful negligence; [the neglect of] trifling changes; and dissimilarity of elements [in the composition of a state].
- Aristotle Politics Book V Chapter 2
There has been a great deal of discussion in recent times concerning possible—even probable—Balkanization in the United States. In light of this, it is fruitful to consider again what exactly happened in the Balkans. While the obvious questions concern the how, why, and aftermath of Yugoslavia’s split, equally important are the questions concerning how Yugoslavia came to be in the first place; after all, America does not really have the long-standing, pre-existing nations that Yugoslavia had and later defaulted to in its break-up. American states, even as colonies, were always to some degree united in a way that the Balkan states were not until their becoming Yugoslavia. This is to say: if America sees Balkanization, its splintered peoples will likely find themselves tasked with the formation of new nations or poleis that did not previously exist—complete with new constitutions, economies, and governing bodies—much like what happened in the formation of the Confederacy following the Southern States’ secession from the Union.
The story of Yugoslavia—from its founding vision and its great successes to its failures and ultimately its fall—is both a promising and cautionary tale for any people who seek for themselves and their posterity a nation and prosperity worth fighting for.
The Foundations of a Nation
A nation is its people. The people of the Balkans, the Southern Slavs, had for centuries organized themselves into smaller states and had been fighting against the occupation of various empires: the Venetians had come from the West, the Byzantines and Ottoman-Turks from the East. The nation of Yugoslavia was built on an idea that would unite its people: after centuries of occupation by foreign empires, Croatian and Serbian intelligentsia put forth the idea that their best chance of regaining—and maintaining—their freedom was to form a federation of the Southern Slavs. Following the break-up of the Habsburg Empire after World War I, the Southern Slavs decided that they would no longer remain a collage of weak and divided states with little ability to defend themselves against the imperial interests of neighboring empires. The idea of a Southern Slav federation was put into action.
The Southern Slavs had much in common, though the various empires that occupied them had left them with differences that had—isolated from external influence—nonetheless proved surmountable. Having been occupied by the Venetian and Habsburg Empires, Croatians had been converted to Catholicism. Serbs, having lost their wars with the Byzantine Empire, were devout Orthodox Christians. During the Ottoman occupation, untold numbers of urban Serbs converted to Islam, hence becoming “Turks” or “Bosniaks.” The religious partitioning of the Southern Slavs—ethnically one—was moreover wrapped up in myth, lore, and zeal: from the Venetian-led Crusade to Constantinople to the Battle of Kosovo, these religious differences were cemented into respective identities. E.g., the Battle of Kosovo is to Serbs what the Alamo is to Texans, and it is hard to imagine the absence of a great loss of respect for those “Bosniaks” who subsequently converted to Islam during the Ottoman occupation.
Nonetheless, the commonalities of the Southern Slavs were enough to surmount these differences. It is first important to emphasize the fact that the Southern Slavs are ethnically one. The framing of “ethnic divides” and “ethnic tensions” in the Balkans is absolute bullshit, propaganda used to pit the Southern Slavs against each other. Not only is the ethnic uniformity of the Southern Slavs confirmed by recent DNA studies, but it was already known by the Yugoslav Committee, formed in London in 1915, whose preamble in their declaration made clear that the Southern Slavs are: “the same by blood, by language, by the feelings of their unity, by the continuity and integrity of the territory which they inhabit undividedly, and by the common vital interests of their national survival and manifold development of their moral and material life.”
More than being ethnically one, the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes all spoke the same language despite having different written alphabets (the Serbs using the Cyrillic alphabet, the Croats and Slovenes using Gaj’s Latin). This all was enough that, despite religious differences, they had more in common with each other than with the various foreign empires for whom they were, collectively, an imperial interest. What mattered most was their freedom from these foreign empires. As Gavrillo Princep himself proclaimed at his trial, “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria.”
Together Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia would form a greater nation capable of achieving their common interests: economic prosperity and the ability to defend themselves from imperial forces.
Paradise Found: Leveraging Neutrality
It is impossible to tell the story of Yugoslavia without telling the story of Josip Broz, more commonly known as Tito. During WWII, Tito led the Yugoslav Partisans who were, by far, the most effective resistance movement of the war. With Tito at the helm, the Partisans, an army of 700,000 strong by the war’s end, liberated the Balkans from the Axis powers almost singlehandedly (Russia helped a bit toward the very end, but by that point the writing had been on the wall for some time for the Axis forces in the region). Following WWII, Tito was both a national hero and life-long President of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980.
Leveraging Yugoslavia’s neutrality and its related status as a chess piece between East and West, Tito succeeded in procuring post-war funds to rebuild his ruined nation. After rebuilding, Yugoslavia maintained trade relations with both East and West, much to his neutral nation’s economic benefit. Playing the neutrality card did not entail that Tito or Yugoslavia would be seen as trying to appease, however, and Tito made sure of this:
The President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, was a guest of the United States in 1971, and was greeted there with the greatest honors.
During a meeting with Nixon, in a room full of journalists and photo reporters, Tito lit a Cuban cigar! The move was provocative for two reasons. First, smoking in the White House was strictly forbidden since 1946. Secondly, the meeting took place at the peak of the intolerance of America and Cuba, and Tito, by common sense, was supplied by Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Nixon had to react.
“Mr President, we do not smoke here in the White House”, said an astonished Nixon.
Tito looked at him, continued to smoke, laughed, and said coldly:
“Lucky you!”
By the end of the meeting, Nixon did not mention this ban anymore.
Josip Broz was and remains the only one who violated this ban.
Tito’s equally public message to Stalin was much more stern; in his now famous letter to Stalin, Tito wrote:
Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle... If you don't stop sending assassins, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second.
Notably, Slovenian historian Joze Pirjavec theorizes in his book, Tito In Tovarisi, that Stalin’s subsequent death was not the result of a stroke, but of poisoning; Pirjavec believes that Tito made good on his threat. It would not be the first time—nor the last—that Tito would have political opponents assassinated.
This bold neutrality established Yugoslavia as a post-war economic powerhouse in the region. From 1960 to 1980, Yugoslavia averaged a 6.1% growth in GDP year-over-year, among the highest in Europe. The Yugoslav army, in response to the ever looming threat of invasion from the Soviet Union, became the fourth largest army in Europe. The literacy rate in Yugoslavia was over 90%, average life expectancy was 72 years, its people had free medical care and education, and the guarantee of one month of paid vacation per year. Most of the economy (about 70%) was in the public, not-for-profit sector yet small, private businesses were simultaneously encouraged. Foreign interests were initially prohibited from owning Yugoslav businesses, though later legislation was passed which allowed for up to 49% ownership of businesses by foreigners.
Yugoslavia represented a third way: a third option between Western corporate capitalism and Eastern, Stalinist communism. It was for this reason a thorn in the side of both the West and the Soviet Union, yet also a valuable chess piece over which both sides sought influence. But for the Yugoslav people, it was paradise.
This prosperity came about in large part due to the political maneuvering of Tito, taking advantage of Yugoslavia’s status as a chess piece on the international stage. Under his leadership Yugoslavia spearheaded the Non-Aligned Movement, founded in Belgrade in 1961. Much like the Swiss—who themselves have a rich military history of banding together to repel invaders and serving as the most sought-after mercenaries in Europe—Yugoslavia was ardently committed to neutrality. Indeed, their becoming a regional military powerhouse was part and parcel of this neutrality: it was a way of preserving it, of protecting themselves from being roped into the broader conflict of East and West—and maintaining the economic rewards that neutrality brings, both in terms of maintaining trade relations that bridge geopolitical divides and accepting various forms of support from both sides trying to win favor.
Through leveraging their neutrality and using its benefits to build industry of their own, the Southern Slavs were for the first time united, prosperous, and no easy lunch for the imperial forces surrounding them.
To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
Tito’s death in May of 1980 marked the beginning of a rapid decline for Yugoslavia. Both loved and feared, Tito was a strong-armed leader who was known for having threats to Yugoslavia’s unity—both internal and external—swiftly killed or imprisoned. His funeral drew massive attendance from Yugoslavia’s citizens and was, at the time, the largest state funeral in history in terms of attendance of foreign dignitaries. Foreign dignitaries in attendance included: four kings, six princes, 22 prime ministers, 31 presidents, and 47 ministers of foreign affairs. 128 countries out of the 154 UN members at the time were represented.
In hindsight, one might wonder how many of these dignitaries were grinning while Yugoslavs wept, giddy with intent on destroying what the now deceased Tito had built.
In 1971, Yugoslavia’s $3.1 Billion debt amounted to 20.11% of its GDP—relatively low compared to the then 67.95% of the U.K., 46.64% of the U.S., 41.46% of Italy, and so-on. Not so bad, right? After Tito’s death, the Communist League of Yugoslavia continued on with a collective leadership model, with the office of President rotating annually between representatives each member state. With Tito gone, politicians in Yugoslavia—much more loyal to their home states than Yugoslavia as a whole—began taking out massive loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It was a grab-bag that these politicians were happy to indulge in, and they did so on a scale that Tito—who was known to all as the strong-armed champion of Yugoslavia who was not to be fucked with—would never have allowed. The West, of course, was more than happy to oblige; after all, per Reagan’s 1984 National Security Decisions Directive 133, U.S. policy was officially to move Yugoslavia toward a “market-directed economy” modeled after Western economies—which we all know are built on debt.
To help with this transformation of Yugoslavia’s economy, in came the advisors from an NGO named The National Endowment for Democracy. The planner of this NGO was one Allen Weinstein, who told the Washington Post in September of 1991 that “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” Translation: The NED was a front for economic warfare conducted by the CIA. The NED supported select politicians, opposition groups, trade union opposition, pro-IMF economists, journalists, and others seen as favorable to their cause.
The NED also pays for the Center for International Private Enterprise, who in turn funded the G17, an NGO made up of 17 free market economists, three of which were and are members of the IMF and World Bank: Dušan Vujović, Željko Bogetic, and Branko Milanović. Veselin Vukotić, G17 coordinator working closely with the World Bank, was the Minister of Privatization and Entrepreneurship beginning in 1989, i.e., the World Bank’s bankruptcy program in Yugoslavia. He would be the one implementing their re-structuring and austerity measures during this time that would further devastate the Yugoslav economy and ultimately bring about its collapse.
The process Vukotić oversaw was privatization through liquidation, and this would continue for many years. Indeed, the G17 ultimately became a political party in Serbia known as the G17 Plus and would retain control of the Serbian Ministries of Finance and Economy despite never receiving more than 11% of the popular vote. From January 1989 to September 1990, over 1,100 industrial firms were wiped out as a result of new laws and economic manipulation used to trigger bankruptcy. Creditors would then take hold of these enterprises and sell them to foreign interests for pennies on the dollar.
From January to October of 1990 alone, the standard of living in Yugoslavia dropped 18%. The population continued to be impoverished, unemployment increased, and from there it was easy to encourage finger-pointing among the Yugoslav peoples in the midst of the fallout of these austerity and privatization schemes being implemented. A desperate Yugoslav President Ante Marković visited President George H. W. Bush to ask for $1 Billion in financial aid, knowing that trouble was brewing and warning Bush that calamity would ensue if aid was not granted. Bush’s response was to encourage Congress to pass the 1990 Foreign Appropriations Act.
The Foreign Appropriations Act cut off all financial aid to Yugoslavia and denied them trade credits, on which modern international trade depends. Further, the Act stipulated that if any of the Yugoslav member states wished to receive further aid from the U.S., they must first secede from the Yugoslav Republic and declare their independence. Further, it required U.S. State Department approval of election procedures and results in each of the member states and required that they not participate in national elections, but only elections within the borders of their own state. Any aid would go to only the individual states, and only to specific groups within those states deemed “democratic” by the U.S.
And the rest is history.
There was much more that ensued in the way of fueling fires, propaganda, and propping up and arming extremist factions, but feeding Yugoslavia massive IMF loans; implementing austerity, re-structuring, and privatization through liquidation measures to implode and buy up the Yugoslav economy; and the subsequent passing of the Foreign Appropriations Act is the gist of how the West effectively split up the Yugoslav Republic.1
Later, during and after NATO’s occupation of various places in what was, until then, Yugoslavia and its infamous 78-day bombing campaign of Serbia and its Kosovo region, more elements of the former Yugoslav economy were transferred to Western corporations and conglomerates. Two prominent examples are the massive cigarette factory in Niš, which was bombed not once, not twice, but three times and later bought by Philip Morris for pennies (we all know cigarettes are big business in Eastern Europe, a market Philip Morris was obviously eager to cash in on) and the Trepča Mines in Kosovo—the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, being Europe’s single largest mine of lead, zinc, and silver (as well as many other minerals)—which was transferred to Knudsen International as a stakeholder and the larger conglomerate, Washington Group International.
The nation of Yugoslavia was targeted, penetrated by loans and economic subversion, split apart, driven to civil war, and bought up for pennies on the dollar.
To Build a Nation: Lessons from Yugoslavia
There are several important lessons to be learned from the founding of Yugoslavia:
New nations are built on commonalities
The more a group or groups of people have in common, the easier it is for them to unify and stay unified. While blood ties and common interests related to defense and prosperity are demonstrably enough to overcome religious differences, when those common interests are eliminated (e.g., how the threat of Soviet invasion as well as the economic prosperity of Yugoslavia both disappeared in the wake of its dissolution) the groups will revert to prioritizing their religious identities over everything else. In this sense, it can be said that religion is the fundamental commonality and difference that people will maintain and default to without overwhelming reason to look beyond it.
This is seen not only in how the break-up took shape, but also in the tensions and diplomacy that have continued since then. Bosnia—itself something of a miniature Yugoslavia, comprising of a mix of Catholic Croats, Muslim “Bosniaks” (again, historic Serbs who converted to Islam under the Ottoman occupation), and Orthodox Serbs in the Republika Srpska—remains the most precarious of the former Yugoslav member states, with both its Croat population and the Republika Srpska seeking to rejoin with their larger, respective states...either of which would almost certainly result in the total collapse of Bosnia itself. In Macedonia, there has been a great deal of tension between its Orthodox Christian and Muslim populations, with the former continually seeking communion with the Serbian Orthodox Church—their religion being infinitely more important to them than what their current citizenship papers say. Similarly, the Orthodox Serbs in northern Kosovo have been in constant tension with the oppressive Muslim regime put in place as a puppet government of Kosovo while its resources are extracted—a bullshit “nation” that even today, almost half of UN member nations refuse to recognize.
It is also worth mentioning here that Serbia’s greatest ally today is Russia—who, of course, shares in its Orthodox Christianity.
While it is telling that common ethnicity, language, defense, and economic interests can lead to religious tensions being subdued, absent just the common defense and economic interests those religious differences will again become prominent. Again, it is evident that religious identity, as demonstrated by the break-up of Yugoslavia and the continued tensions in the Balkans, is the default commonality that people go back to and which will maintain nations or, in the case of differences, be the dividing line of their split.
The lesson, it would seem, is that religion and ethnicity matter most, but that differences in these domains can be maintained peaceably when and where common defensive and economic interests are prominent. These four commonalities, in whatever order of prioritization they take, are the ties that bind a nation together.
Neutrality and a strong defensive capability are crucial
Yugoslavia’s neutrality allowed them to trade with both East and West which, for a long time, was of huge benefit to their economy. Moreover, their neutral status afforded them a privileged status among the world’s nations: they were trusted as a safe haven where non-neutral parties could gather and carry out diplomacy, and were generally regarded as a bridge between East and West.
Much like the Swiss, their mountains, and their maintaining an armed and trained populace, the size of the Yugoslav military was an essential component of their neutrality. Stalin had long been interested in invading Yugoslavia, but the formidability of the Yugoslav military as well as the size and effectiveness of its intelligence community (the renowned UDBA who not only foiled numerous attempts on Tito’s life, but themselves successfully neutralized many threats to Yugoslavia domestically as well as across both Europe and North America) played a crucial role in enabling Yugoslavia to maintain its neutrality and not be absorbed into the Eastern Bloc.
Neutrality is something that has to be enforced if necessary. Neutral nations are typically the smaller dogs—but that just means they have to be more adamant to the bigger dogs that they are not to be fucked with. It also helps to be in the mountains or some otherwise highly defensible position.
Moreover, neutrality is itself an incredibly valuable asset for a nation. Another example of this is the wealth and influence Switzerland has been able to amass via its (until recently) neutral, private, and protected banking system that other nations have been happy to make use of. For nations like Yugoslavia and Switzerland, neutrality not only brings with it a degree of influence and utility as a shelter of wealth and diplomacy, but also a bridge between economies which sanction each other. Neutral countries have the opportunity to play middle-man and in some sense “facilitate trade" between nations that do not trade directly.
The arms industry that backs up neutrality also serves as a source of income. Switzerland is among the world's leading manufacturers and exporters of small arms (ranked #6 in 2014, $1 Billion in small arms exported in 2022), and per capita it is the largest, behind only Israel. To this day, the Swiss K31 rifle is renowned for its legendary accuracy, continuing to hold the world record for the longest range open-sight hit on target (four hits on a 36-inch target at 2,240 yards using a stock K31 rifle).
Similarly, the Serbian/Yugoslav arms manufacturer Zastava, as well as ammunition manufacturers Prvi Partizan and Belom are world-renowned. The Zastava M70 is known as one of the world's most reliable AK platform rifles, utilizing thicker trunnions and RPK receivers that offer superior reliability during sustained fire and use of rifle grenades. The Yugo M67 bullet design revolutionized the 7.62x39mm cartridge, introducing a design that enables the bullet to yaw quickly upon impact, making it arguably the most deadly medium-caliber full metal jacket cartridge in the world. When Saddam Hussein took his pile of gold and ordered rifles for the Iraqi army, he bought them from Zastava for a reason (though for some reason, he just would not fucking listen when they told him the Tabuk didn't need a 23-inch barrel).
A strong leader and commitment of the people go a long way
It is no coincidence that Yugoslavia went into a drastic decline upon the death of Tito. He led the Yugoslav Partisans to the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi occupation and then led the Yugoslav people to a quality of life that those who lived it still get misty-eyed thinking about. He was a man committed to his people, and a man that his people in turn committed to following.
Up until the economic and propaganda wars waged by the West were in full swing, the people of Yugoslavia were also committed to the nation they had formed and prospered under. The economic warfare set the stage for the propaganda an ensuing civil war. There was no breaking Yugoslavia apart without first breaking the commitment of its people to one another. Indeed, this commitment to greater Yugoslavia, a commitment so great that Gavrillo Princep and others were ready and willing to start a World War over it, is the sort of extreme commitment necessary to the founding of a new nation—just as America’s founding fathers had effectively signed their own death warrant in the event that the Revolution failed.
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
Having examined the lessons in founding a nation, it is now time to consider the lessons pertaining to keeping a nation:
Don't take their fucking loans
They're not trying to help you. It's not going to be an easy way to increase industry and consumption. It is a ploy to gain control of your economy. Build it yourself. Slow and steady wins the race. Gifts are fine, but don’t take their loans.
…and if you do take their loans, when push comes to shove and they try to leverage the balance against your nation and demand you re-structure, liquidate, etc., tell them to fuck off. It's money they used to create out of thin air through fractional reserve banking, and now it's simply created out of keystrokes, a string of numbers typed on a keyboard.
Don’t accept foreign investment
They will try to leverage it to take over your economy. No foreign ownership of businesses, no foreign ownership of land. Don't. Let. Them. In.
Moreover, it is better to accept slower economic growth and less in the way of fancy pants and lollipops than to become beholden to foreign interests. Build it yourself, and accept that it is a long process.
A little forgiveness goes a long way
Under the Nazi puppet “clerical” Ustaše regime in Croatia during WWII, it was open season on Orthodox Serbs who happened to live in Croatia.
Likewise, the Chetniks (also aligned with the Nazis) in Serbia were all too eager to return the favor. Tito's biggest accomplishment was eliminating these perpetrators and putting this beef to rest, and a golden age ensued for all.
If you're going to bury hatchets, then you'd better let sleeping dogs lie, too; don't let foreigners wake them up, either.
Have a plan of succession; have a plan for your posterity
If Tito's greatest accomplishment was squashing beef and ushering in a golden age, his greatest failure was that it all so quickly fell apart in his absence.
How easy his nation's economy was subverted and old fires reignited in his absence. A plan for the Yugoslav posterity, a plan that all Yugoslavs could recognize as safeguarding what they had for future generations could have prevented what came after Tito's death.
Heterogeneity of stocks may lead to sedition - at any rate until they have had time to assimilate. A state cannot be constituted by any chance body of persons, or in any chance period of time. Most states which have admitted persons of another stock, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by sedition. There are many instances. […] Heterogeneity of territory is also an occasion of sedition. This happens in states with a territory not naturally adapted to political unity. At Clazomenae the inhabitants of the suburb of Chytrus [on the mainland] were at discord with the inhabitants on the island; and there was a similar discord between Cleophon and its sea-port Notium. At Athens, again, there was a similar difference: the inhabitants of the port of Peiraeus are more democratic than those of the city of Athens. Taking our analogy from war, where the dividing line of a ditch, however small it may be, makes a regiment scatter in crossing, we may say that every difference is apt to create a division. The greatest division is perhaps that between virtue and vise; then there is the division between wealth and poverty; and there are also other divisions, some greater and some smaller, arising from other differences. Among these last we may count the division cause by difference of territory.
- Aristotle Politics Book V Chapter 3
For any interested in looking into the full(er) extent of the West’s involvement in breaking up Yugoslavia, including the propaganda pushed to Yugoslavs and the Western world that drove them to continual civil war, the propping up of extremists, the economic warfare, as well as the flagrant lies portraying the Serbs as the most heinous war criminals of modern times, the best source I have come across is Michael Parenti’s book, To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia for which this section of the article is named.