YUGOSLAVIA AS A GREEK TRAGEDY

Economic crisis, historical traumas, the end of the Cold War, multinat ionality and rapidly expanding nationalisms had by 1991 made Yugoslavi a explosive, with three interacting sub-conflicts (north, Bosnia, sout h), each with its own dynamics. The diaspora Serbs wanted to retain Yu goslavia, with Great Serbia as an optimum and a ''Serbia Minor'' each as a last substitute solution. Both local and western great power acto rs operated counter-productively as a result of their overestimated be lief in own power, and short-sightedness. A prolonged UN presence will be required in order to reach a compromise between Croatia and the Kr ajina Serbs. For some decades Bosnia-Hercegovina may have status as a great power protectorate or be divided into three de facto independent states. In the southern triangle a collapse of the fragile stability may imply a risk of internationalization -created by Serbian, Macedoni an or Albanian extreme nationalism - by attempted intervention from ou tside. Military interventions against local adversaries would probably do more harm than good.