In spite of Slovenia's and Croatia's difficult transitions toward independence, two other republics, Bosnia and Macedonia, also decided to secede from Yugoslavia. In a move that some critics have blamed for fueling the Balkan wars, the UN and many Western countries recognized Slovenia and Croatia as sovereign states, thus bolstering bids for selfdetermination in other Yugoslav republics. Macedonia— only about 2 percent of which was Serbs—was allowed to secede without any armed resistance. But when Bosnia— whose population was about one-third Serb—seceded in March 1992, the JNA immediately began to help Bosnian Serbs fight the secession. The beginning of the Bosnian war was in many ways a mirror of the Croatian war, but in Bosnia, the war would go on for three years.

The man who some analysts claim was the most responsible for the Bosnian war was Bosnian Serb Radovan...