Shadowplay

I bought Tim Marshall’s account of the Yugoslavia war in the 90’s, Shadowplay, because I don’t understand anything about the place. Or as Marshall put it:

“I thought I knew my history, but actually coming to a region where everyone seemed to have a grievance and an ‘itch’ at the end of their name was confusing. Milošević. Panić, Ilić?”

In case you’re wondering, this is not a popular history book. Instead, it’s a British journalist’s account of his stint in Yugoslavia during that period.

 

With typical British wry humour, he pointed out Europe’s surprise by the carnage that broke out after the death of Marshall Tito who had convinced folks that “they really were Yugoslav first, Croat/ Bosnian/ Muslim/ Serb second”. But after his death and the fall of communism, things old divisions resurfaced:

“To my generation it just didn’t seem possible. War was what happened far away, in places with different cultures. War did not happen in our continent because we’d left all that behind… Surely that wasn’t allowed in places where we had been on holiday?... Nor did war break out in cities where you could stage winter Olympics, such as Sarajevo.”

 

Their surprise is, well, surprising. Didn’t Bismarck once supposedly say:

“If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.”

This is an area where divisions, differences, and real or imagined crimes of the past run deep. All sides “made convincing claims for sovereignty based on their history, ethnicity and language”. In fact, it goes back so long that outsiders find it is easier to just ignore or, should they try to understand, find themselves becoming totally confused. Which/whose version do you believe? How far back in time can you, the outsider, even keep track of?

“If you were to give an account of a war crime, but not include any names, dates or places, everyone would probably agree that it was a war crime. It’s when you add names, dates and places that the disagreements and accusations and attempted justifications arise; these details mean so much to people who’ve been through a war that objectivity becomes impossible.”

 

The reasons why NATO went to war are many. Some degree of revulsion with the atrocities. The risk of a refugee spillover into Europe (like the one that happened recently from Syria). And yes, it provided an answer to the question why NATO needed to continue with communism gone.

 

A war by NATO, says Marshall, had its share of comical situations. The Americans led it. But all the others wanted to be “in” on the details and decisions:

“The US military… hated doing “war by committee”.”

With every NATO member knowing most details, it ended up that:

“If 600 people at NATO had access to the target list, it’s no surprise that Belgrade had access to it as well, and that they used it to play a deadly game of ‘Now you see me, now you don’t’.”

No wonder then that by the end of the war, the Yugoslav military and its hardware came away practically intact. They just hid their hardware, never engaging with a vastly superior NATO military force.

 

I also understood why the US uses it super high-tech war planes so sparsely in wars. Like those famous, invisible to radar, stealth bombers. First, they’re not needed when you fight Iraq or Yugoslavia or Afghanistan. Second, if they crash or get hit, it’s a huge propaganda win for the enemy. It happened with Yugoslavia. When an F-117 got hit and crashed, it led to T-shirts with stealth bomber pictures and the mocking phrase:

“We’re sorry, we didn’t know it was invisible.”

And lastly, when one crashes, you can be sure the Russians and the Chinese will get their hands on the wreckage to understand the design better!

 

If you want to understand Serb/ Croat/ Bosnian history, look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for a high-level account of the Yugoslavia war without getting lost in historical grouses and wrongs, this book’s an excellent read. The icing on the cake? British humour.