It's easy to call volunteers on the other side "mercenaries". There were mercenaries on the Croatian side and I think in the ArBiH too,if I'm not mistaken. US Private security companies were training some Croats for sure. But a lot of people joined as volunteers for ideological reasons. If there were mercenaries on the Bosnian Serb side,I think it was part of the Russians/Ukrainians.
In late 1992, early 1993, the flow of Mujaheddin fighters started arriving, but were controversial, their presence was heavily used in propaganda by Serb and Croat forces to portray the Bosnian government as Islamic Extremists. The difference was, that at the start of the war in April 1992, volunteers/mercenaries were already organized units fighting for the serbs, many came to pillage and steal property and were from Orthodox countries, which is symbolic for Orthodox Christians comings to fight Muslims and take revenge on the Ottoman historical presence in the Balkans.
You knew from the beginning you were going to have an arms embargo,that you lacked heavy weapons,but Izetbegovic insisted to declare independence.
War was inevitable, the infamous "Karadordevo" meeting from March 1991 between Milosevic and Croatian president Tudjman to partition Bosnia between themselves shows the premeditated nature of the partition plans. Based on accounts of participants and later investigations by the ICTY, was that the two leaders agreed in principle to dismantle Bosnia and Herzegovina and divide its territory between Serbia and Croatia. Although, this was already known in 1991, as news outlets reported on the meeting, and Bosnian politicians received information about the plans, so by declaring independence, it provided Bosnians a legal framework to fight back within the limits of a Nation State, and by doing so, would avoid being labeled as terrorists or resistance fighters, but in stead they formed a national army, thereby, turning the tables. This deal between Serbia and Croatia would have needed a war, as they would not be able to create ethnic territories without a war to displace the Bosniaks and others who didn't drink their cool-aid. To also keep in mind, Bosniaks liked Yugoslavia, well at least Tito's YU, and this is why we declared independence only after Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia did, only when we saw that YU was for sure dead, did we also leave the sinking ship to save our people.
What two-faced West,they basically handed you independence by the end. I'm not saying the ArBiH and HVO weren't winning,they were,but part of the Bosnian Serb defeats were because of NATO threats and Operation Deliberate Force.
The Bosnian army was the necessary condition for Bosnia's survival. All other factors, international diplomacy, recognition and aid, would have been irrelevant if there had been no military force on the ground to defend the state and represent its sovereignty. The ARBIH's resistance, despite its immense suffering and sacrifice, ensured that BIH remained a political and military reality, forcing the "WEST" to acknowledge it and ultimately leading to its preservation. Nothing was handed, this is not how international politics works.
BIH would have surely been completely carved up and absorbed by Serbia and Croatia. The survival of the Bosnian state is directly attributable to the military fight of the ARBIH.
Are you complaining about that or...I don't know,just stating it? That's what federalism is about,what can you do.
It is a good thing, considering Belgrade's initial plans to absorb 70% of Bosnia and 35-40% of Croatia, and form a new larger/greater Serbia, their plan was dismantled. They lost everything in Croatia, in Bosnia they received 49% of the territory in the form of an entity, which does not have fiscal, monetary, defense, etc, sovereignty, all Serbs are Bosnian citizens, pay taxes, and so on, although they do have local autonomy. Finally, Belgrade also lost Kosovo, just saying, it is a string of losses despite having most of the former YU Army under their control, they didn't perform well.
I don't want to derail this thread, would be happy to discuss with you via private message, but the war in Bosnia was complex, Bosniaks, a small peoplee, fought back, never gave up and ultimately achieved their overarching goal of preserving BIH as a state. I just spoke to you about our fight against Serbs, but we also fought Croats from late 1992-1994 and also defeated them as the end result of that was that the Bosnian Croats lost their claims to create their own state called the "Herzeg-Bosnia", this is evident in the "Washington" agreement in 1994 which does not even mention the "Herzeg-Bosnia" in it.
Serbian President Vucic has once again blamed Turkey.
