Unresolved issues from the breakup caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav Wars from 1991 to 2001 which primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, neighbouring parts of Croatia and, some years later, Kosovo.

Following the Allied victory in World War II, Yugoslavia was set up as a federation of six republics, with borders drawn along ethnic and historical lines: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.

In 1987, Slobodan Milošević came to power in Serbia, and through a series of populist moves acquired de facto control over Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro, garnering a high level of support among Serbs for his centralist policies.

Milošević was met with opposition by party leaders of the western constituent republics of Slovenia and Croatia, who also advocated greater democratisation of the country in line with the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe.

During 1990, the socialists (former communists) lost power to ethnic separatist parties in the first multi-party elections held across the country, except in Montenegro and in Serbia, where Milošević and his allies won.

Yugoslavia occupied a significant portion of the Balkan Peninsula, including a strip of land on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, stretching southward from the Bay of Trieste in Central Europe to the mouth of Bojana as well as Lake Prespa inland, and eastward as far as the Iron Gates on the Danube and Midžor in the Balkan Mountains, thus including a large part of Southeast Europe, a region with a history of ethnic conflict.

During World War II, the country's tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis forces which established a Croat puppet state spanning much of present-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Conversely, Serbian Royalist Chetniks pursued their own campaign of persecution against non-Serbs in parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Sandžak per the Moljević plan ("On Our State and Its Borders") and the orders issues by Draža Mihailović which included "[t]he cleansing of all nation understandings and fighting".

At the same time, former royalist, General Milan Nedić, was installed by the Axis as head of the puppet government in the German-occupied area of Serbia, and local Serbs were recruited into the Gestapo and the Serbian Volunteer Corps, which was linked to the German Waffen-SS.

Both quislings were confronted and eventually defeated by the communist-led, anti-fascist Partisan movement composed of members of all ethnic groups in the area, leading to the formation of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The crisis that emerged in Yugoslavia was connected with the weakening of the Communist states in Eastern Europe towards the end of the Cold War, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

[22] In 1984, the Reagan administration issued a classified document, National Security Decision Directive 133, expressing concern that Yugoslavia's debt load might cause the country to align with the Soviet bloc.

[23] The 1980s were a time of economic austerity as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed stringent conditions on Yugoslavia, which caused much resentment toward the Communist elites who had so mismanaged the economy by recklessly borrowing money abroad.

[24][failed verification] The rampant corruption in Yugoslavia, of which the "Agrokomerc affair" was merely the most dramatic example, did much to discredit the Communist system, as it was revealed that the elites were living luxurious lifestyles, well beyond the means of ordinary people, with money stolen from the public purse during a time of austerity.

[24][failed verification] A wave of major strikes developed in 1987–88 as workers demanded higher wages to compensate for inflation, as the IMF mandated the end of various subsidies, and they were accompanied by denunciations of the entire system as corrupt.

Furthermore, the failure of communism all over Central and Eastern Europe once again brought to the surface Yugoslavia's inner contradictions, economic inefficiencies (such as chronic lack of productivity, fuelled by the country's leaderships' decision to enforce a policy of full employment), and ethno-religious tensions.

[37] A group of Kosovo Serb supporters of Milošević who helped bring down Vllasi declared that they were going to Slovenia to hold "the Rally of Truth" which would decry Milan Kučan as a traitor to Yugoslavia and demand his ousting.

At the meeting, army official Petar Gračanin told the Croatian Serb politicians how to organize their rebellion, telling them to put up barricades, as well as assemble weapons of any sort, saying "If you can't get anything else, use hunting rifles".

[45] Mesić was only seated in October 1990 because of protests from the Serbian side, and then joined Macedonia's Vasil Tupurkovski, Slovenia's Janez Drnovšek and Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bogić Bogićević in opposing the demands to proclaim a general state of emergency, which would have allowed the Yugoslav People's Army to impose martial law.

[citation needed] The discovery of Croatian arms smuggling combined with the crisis in Knin, the election of independence-leaning governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, and Slovenes demanding independence in the referendum on the issue suggested that Yugoslavia faced the imminent threat of disintegration.

Croatian delegate Stjepan Mesić responded angrily to the proposal, accusing Jović and Kadijević of attempting to use the army to create a Greater Serbia and declared "That means war!".

Carrington's plan realized that Yugoslavia was in a state of dissolution and decided that each republic must accept the inevitable independence of the others, along with a promise to Serbian President Milošević that the European Community would ensure that Serbs outside of Serbia would be protected.

Except for secret negotiations between foreign ministers Hans-Dietrich Genscher (Germany) and Alois Mock (Austria), the unilateral recognition came as an unwelcome surprise to most EC governments and the United States, with whom there was no prior consultation.

The extent of Vatican and Federal Intelligence Agency of Germany (BND) intervention in this episode has been explored by scholars familiar with the details, but the historical record remains disputed.

[56] In the beginning months of the war, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army and navy deliberately shelled civilian areas of Split and Dubrovnik, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as nearby Croat villages.

While France, Britain and most other European Community member nations were still emphasizing the need to preserve the unity of Yugoslavia,[69] the German chancellor Helmut Kohl led the charge to recognize the first two breakaway republics of Slovenia and Croatia.

Days before the end of the year on Christmas Eve, Germany recognized the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, "against the advice of the European Community, the UN, and US President George H W Bush".

[74] Some observers opined that the break up of the Yugoslav state violated the principles of post-Cold War system, enshrined in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE) and the Treaty of Paris of 1990.

In March 1992, during the US-Bosnian independence campaign, the politician and future president of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović reached an EC brokered agreement with Bosnian Croats and Serbs on a three-canton confederal settlement.

[77] The Agreement on Succession Issues of the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was then signed on 29 June 2001, leading to the sharing of international assets among the five sovereign equal successor states.