ABSTRACT
Coming from Belgrade, where I have lived almost all my life, including during the catastrophic 1990s, I have learned very clearly that war can be created almost anywhere, at almost any time. I have also learned another absurd but nevertheless true lesson-that the lower the probability of war the easier the possibility of manufacturing it, because of the absence of systemic and structural mechanisms to prevent it. This has, I believe, been the true situation in all of the wars involving former Yugoslavia. They happened exactly because they did not need to happen, in a vacuum of determinism which gave too much authority to the powerholders while, at the same time, producing disbelief, confusion and distrust on the part of those who were powerless and predominately victimized. Wars (one war or several?) in former Yugoslavia were the wars of ‘states-to-be’ against society. The problem was that there were too many ‘states-to-be’ and only one society which ‘needed to be’ ripped apart.
