[BRIEF NOTE] Slovenia's Ten Day War
Apr. 15th, 2008 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldPartly because I'm interested in it as inspiration for an ongoing writing project, I've been reading up on Slovenia's war of independence, the Ten Day War, fought in June 1991 a year after a declaration of independence. (The previous link was to Wikipedia; the Slovenian defense ministry's version is here.) The main thing that strikes me about this war of independence is how neatly and successfully it was managed, with barely more than a hundred casualties and a duration of just ten days, and a negotiated conclusion (the Yugoslav military's withdrawal, the postponement of Slovenia's declaration) that both sides followed.
Why did things go so well? There had been slow progress towards independence beforehand, inspired by Milosevic's mobilization of Serb nationalism, aided by several pre-existing factors (a functioning democracy, a strong civil society, relative economic success, a relative lack of ethnic conflicts) went into this. Slovenes had succeeded in building a nation within Communist Yugoslavia, consolidating a national territory and developing an advanced economy closely associated with western Europe thanks to Yugoslavia's neutralism. There was ideological tumult in the 1970s, but as John Allcock suggests that Slovenia was able to avoid the ethnic polarization of the other Yugoslav territories because, without any notable ethnic divisions and the common acceptance of Slovenian nationalism, ethnicity simply wasn't an option. After Tito's 1980 death, a Slovenia advantaged by the above factors was able to liberalize still further to become the most liberal Communist territory in Europe. In 1987, the music group Laibach could release a hit single ("Sympathy for the Devil") that explicitly suggested that Satan organized the Bolshevik Revolution. No one seems to have done anything about that. By the time that ethnic conflict had begun to open up on multiple fronts elsewhere in Yugoslavia (Serbs against Albanians, Croats against Serbs, et cetera), Slovenia was internally secure and facing only outside threats.
This relaxed liberalism, in turn, helped produce a pragmatically low-intensity war doctrine (forces armed with light defensive weaponry, attacking vulnerable military units, defending symbolic targets) alongside a very media-savvy approach succinctly described by the war's Wikipedia article.
It likely didn't help Yugoslavia's matters that several of the 14 casualties among foreigners were journalists. People like the late Canadian diplomat James Bissett complained that Slovenia (and Croatia) made extensive use of Western news media to gain support for independence, criticisms delivered at greater length at The Emperor's Clothes website at www.tenc.net, but that's hardly a realistic critique. Just look what Americans did to gain their national independence. Leaving aside the media superstar status that Thomas Paine got for his pamphlet Common Sense, Benjamin Franklin's stay in the salons of Paris helped mobilize French support for the nascent United States.
The result of this successful, well-planned war was a successful, well-planned country. Slovenia might have lost out from independence if Yugoslavia hadn't been heading towards the abyss. As it happened, Slovenia managed to extricate itself neatly from Yugoslavia and more on to become a generally normal small rich European nation. There were no mass executions or other atrocities, no wide-spread impoverishment, no very significant embittering of populations.
The chance configuration of factors allowing for a relatively painless war of independence is unique to Slovenia, but many of these tactics (military actions which try to avoid frontal assaults or attacks on civilians, the construction of legalistic cases and mobilization of mass support in favour of independence, the mobilization of international mass media support). It's interesting to see how, driven by local and contingent factors, Slovenia ended up producing a prototype for the post-modern war of independence with worldwide relevance.
Why did things go so well? There had been slow progress towards independence beforehand, inspired by Milosevic's mobilization of Serb nationalism, aided by several pre-existing factors (a functioning democracy, a strong civil society, relative economic success, a relative lack of ethnic conflicts) went into this. Slovenes had succeeded in building a nation within Communist Yugoslavia, consolidating a national territory and developing an advanced economy closely associated with western Europe thanks to Yugoslavia's neutralism. There was ideological tumult in the 1970s, but as John Allcock suggests that Slovenia was able to avoid the ethnic polarization of the other Yugoslav territories because, without any notable ethnic divisions and the common acceptance of Slovenian nationalism, ethnicity simply wasn't an option. After Tito's 1980 death, a Slovenia advantaged by the above factors was able to liberalize still further to become the most liberal Communist territory in Europe. In 1987, the music group Laibach could release a hit single ("Sympathy for the Devil") that explicitly suggested that Satan organized the Bolshevik Revolution. No one seems to have done anything about that. By the time that ethnic conflict had begun to open up on multiple fronts elsewhere in Yugoslavia (Serbs against Albanians, Croats against Serbs, et cetera), Slovenia was internally secure and facing only outside threats.
This relaxed liberalism, in turn, helped produce a pragmatically low-intensity war doctrine (forces armed with light defensive weaponry, attacking vulnerable military units, defending symbolic targets) alongside a very media-savvy approach succinctly described by the war's Wikipedia article.
The actions of Slovenia's forces were largely dictated by the military strategy devised some months before and were tightly integrated with an equally detailed media management plan. An international media centre was established prior to the outbreak of conflict with Jelko Kacin designated to act as information minister and Slovenia's public face to the world. The Slovenian government successfully presented the conflict as a case of a "David versus Goliath" struggle between an emerging democracy and an authoritarian communist state, and the columns of Yugoslav tanks inevitably brought to mind the events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 only two years earlier. This won considerable international sympathy and favourable media coverage for the Slovenian cause.
It likely didn't help Yugoslavia's matters that several of the 14 casualties among foreigners were journalists. People like the late Canadian diplomat James Bissett complained that Slovenia (and Croatia) made extensive use of Western news media to gain support for independence, criticisms delivered at greater length at The Emperor's Clothes website at www.tenc.net, but that's hardly a realistic critique. Just look what Americans did to gain their national independence. Leaving aside the media superstar status that Thomas Paine got for his pamphlet Common Sense, Benjamin Franklin's stay in the salons of Paris helped mobilize French support for the nascent United States.
The result of this successful, well-planned war was a successful, well-planned country. Slovenia might have lost out from independence if Yugoslavia hadn't been heading towards the abyss. As it happened, Slovenia managed to extricate itself neatly from Yugoslavia and more on to become a generally normal small rich European nation. There were no mass executions or other atrocities, no wide-spread impoverishment, no very significant embittering of populations.
The chance configuration of factors allowing for a relatively painless war of independence is unique to Slovenia, but many of these tactics (military actions which try to avoid frontal assaults or attacks on civilians, the construction of legalistic cases and mobilization of mass support in favour of independence, the mobilization of international mass media support). It's interesting to see how, driven by local and contingent factors, Slovenia ended up producing a prototype for the post-modern war of independence with worldwide relevance.
