DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY in Southeastern Europe, No 1

Yugoslavia’s independent character was also reinforced
by Tito’s role in promoting the Non-Aligned Movement,
in which he and Yugoslavia sought to be the
leading force for socialist development in the developing
world.
Independence from Moscow but adherence to an essentially
Marxist-Leninist form of one-party rule left
Yugoslavia with a pivotal position between East and
West in the Cold War. Both sides at different times
came closer to Yugoslavia, but for both the main objective
was to prevent it falling into the other’s hands.
This geopolitical setting ended in a rather dramatic
fashion by the implosion of the Soviet block and the
end of the Cold War, as well as the beginning of the
wars of Yugoslav succession at the end of the 1980s
and the beginning of the 1990s. Almost a decade later,
with the post-conflict consolidation of Yugoslavia’s successor
states and their gradual transition toward
democracy and market economy, the time has come
to again examine the issue of international security networks.
Neither the Soviet Union, or the Cold War, or
Yugoslavia for that matter, were part of equation any
longer. Some sixty years after Tito’s mind games with
NATO, the Western Alliance remained a rare invariable,
with little or no security alternatives.
While some Europeans may still believe that the sole
purpose of NATO’s existence has remained unchanged
– namely “to keep the Americans in, Russians
out and Germans down” – NATO today is not the
same organizations it was a few decades ago. The role
the Alliance played in ending wars in the former Yugoslavia,
as well as the new challenges it has been faced
with following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
U.S., have all introduced a measure of caution in decision-making
on NATO accession. For countries in the
region, opting for NATO is not an automatic choice,
but requires careful and rational analysis of risks and
benefits, with a clear vision of what scenario would
best serve the vital national interests. As our little history
reminder suggests, taking into account the public
attitudes toward NATO accession should also be an
important part of the process. n
NOTES:
1
Central Intelligence Agency: The Trend of Soviet-Yugoslav relations
ORE 49-48. Copy No. 1. President’s Secretary’s Files. November 18,
1948. See also, Nick Ceh, U.S. Diplomatic Records On Relations
With Yugoslavia During the Early Cold War, 1948-1957 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 54.
2
There was a saying among the foreign diplomats assigned to missions
in Yugoslavia in the early 1950s that it was a country with
seven neighbors, six republics, five nationalities, four languages,
three religions, two alphabets and one boss, or simply as ethnic
divergence under Tito’s mantra. Walter A. Roberts, Tito, Mihailovic
and the Allies, 1941-1945 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1973), 5.
3
Tito asked for Marshall Plan assistance at several points beginning
in July 1948 and into 1949 but was refused. Susan L. Woodward,
Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (Washington
D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1995), 428.
4
For more on this, see Vojtech Mastny, “NATO in the Beholder’s
Eye: Soviet Perceptions and Policies, 1949-1956,” Cold War International
History Project, Working Paper No. 35, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C., March
2002.
5
Public Record Office, DEFE 5/31, Ministry of Defense. Chiefs of
Staff Committee, Defense of Europe in The Short Term. Copy No.
56, 31 st May, 1951.
6
Public Record Office, Foreign Office Papers, 1952-53, FO
371/102166: 177675, 18 th September 1952.
7
Ibid., 30 July 1952.
8
Ibid., 17 July 1952.
9
Ibid., 22 April, 1952.
10
Ibid., 31 December 1951.
11
Public Record Office: “Record of the meeting between Secretary
of State and Marshal Tito at the White Palace in Belgrade, after
luncheon on Thursday, 18 th September 1952.” Foreign Office Papers,
1952-53, FO 371/ 102166: 177675.
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