Full Description:
The armed conflict between Croatia and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) along with local Serb rebels who had declared the Republic of Serbian Krajina. The war began after Croatia declared independence in June 1991. It featured the brutal siege of Vukovar (87 days, 2,000 dead), the shelling of Dubrovnik, and ended with Operation Storm in 1995. Approximately 20,000 people were killed and over 500,000 displaced.

Critical Perspective:
The Croatian war was a textbook example of clashing legitimacies: Croatia’s right to secede from Yugoslavia versus the Serb minority’s right not to be governed by a state that had become Croatian nationalist. The JNA’s role—initially claiming to be a peacekeepingPeacekeeping Full Description:A mechanism not originally explicitly defined in the Charter, involving the deployment of international military and civilian personnel to conflict zones. Known as the “Blue Helmets,” they monitor ceasefires and create buffer zones to allow for diplomatic negotiations. Peacekeeping was an improvisation developed to manage Cold War conflicts that the Great Powers could not agree to solve forcibly. It operates on the principles of consent (the host country must agree), impartiality, and the non-use of force except in self-defense. Critical Perspective:While often celebrated, peacekeeping is often criticized for “freezing” conflicts rather than solving them. By stabilizing the status quo, it can inadvertently remove the pressure for political solutions, leading to “forever wars” where the UN presence becomes a permanent feature of the landscape. Furthermore, peacekeepers have faced severe criticism for failures to protect civilians and for sexual exploitation and abuse in host communities.
Read more force while actively arming Serb rebels—revealed its capture by Milošević. The war’s end, with Operation Storm, did not resolve the underlying issue of minority rights; it merely reversed the ethnic balance of suffering. Croatia today is an EU member, but its wartime leadership has never been fully held to account.