The European Community's recognition of new states in Yugoslavia: The strategic implications

The EC's recognition of new states in former Yugoslavia is considered by mo st analysts to have seriously aggravated the conflict in the region. This a rticle challenges the conventional wisdom and argues that the strategic eff ects of recognition have been largely overstated. The prospect of recogniti on played no significant role in the Slovene determination to sustain their campaign for independence and therefore bears little responsibility for th e first phase of the war. In Croatia, recognition - together with the deplo yment of UN peacekeepers - may even have had a mitigating effect. Only in B osnia is there any correlation between recognition and an intensification o f hostilities but it is doubtful whether non-recognition would have prevent ed the eruption of violence since Bosnian Serb aspirations for an ethnicall y homogeneous state entity could not be realised without resort to war. The real relevance of recognition lies with the opportunities for more effecti ve international action which it created. It was the failure to seize these opportunities, rather than the strategic effects of recognition, which bet ter explains the tragic events that ensued.