During his mandate as president of Montenegro within Yugoslavia, he oversaw the engagement of Montenegrin reservists in the Yugoslav People's Army in the siege of Dubrovnik as well as in the Bosnian War.

According to Florence Hartmann, Bulatović was subject to an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but was not charged.

During his tenure, he was a loyal ally to Slobodan Milošević, and oversaw the Montenegrin reserve of the Yugoslav People's Army in the Croatian and Bosnian wars.

[citation needed] On 1 October 1991, Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington came to Titograd and asked Bulatović if Dubrovnik was in danger of an attack by the Yugoslav People's Army.

Bulatović, to the shock of Milošević and his own party members, agreed to Carrington's terms and even signed a draft of the plan during an overnight session of the Montenegrin parliament on October 17, arguing that it would secure Montenegro's interests and end the Yugoslav wars.

[13] Bulatović's signature potentially guaranteed Montenegro's legal right to secede from Yugoslavia, resulting in an almost explosive rift with the Yugoslav leadership in Belgrade.

[14] Borisav Jović contacted Bulatović about his support for the Carrington plan in disbelief, asking him if he had been paid off by the Croats, Austrians, or Italians.

[14] Furthermore, Montenegro was allegedly offered a large amount of aid from the West with Italian foreign minister Gianni De Michelis telling Bulatović that he "wanted to chart an independent course from Belgrade.

[14] However, in a sharp turn, the Narodna Stranka (People's Party) called for an emergency session in the Montenegrin parliament, during which Bulatović was accused of treason.

With the war raging in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulatović faced the first serious threat of "spill-over" in the summer of in 1992, when Muslims in Pljevlja were subject to intimidation and violence.

[17][18][19] In addition to the stand-off with Dačević, his militia included forces of the Kornjača brothers from Čajniče, who helped blocked off the town from a garrison of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).

[17] During the negotiations, a representative of Pljevlja's Islamic community named Hakija Ajanović asked Bulatović to tighten border controls to prevent Serbian paramilitaries from Bosnia entering Montenegro.

[18] In the end, Bulatović and his colleagues promised the Islamic community in Pljevlja that they would attempt to disarm the paramilitaries[20] and add reinforcements of the Yugoslav People's Army to patrol the town.

Simply, I think we're coming to the situation where we don't control the field, or the territory--that the self-proclaimed commanders and self-styled formations move and give statements which are catastrophic for our international position, yet we have absolutely no power whatsoever to take that space."

[21] In May 1993, Bulatović participated in the negotiations of the Vance-Owen Plan, held in Athens in the presence of Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

[23] The parliament of Republika Srpska in Pale rejected the resolution in defiance of the Milošević-Ćosić-Bulatović team, and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina continued for another two years.

[26] On 21 March 1998, Bulatović mobilized a large fraction from DPS CG and helped found the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro (SNP).

[32] Knežević, an opposition politician, said Bulatović "left a permanent trace in Montenegrin politics as a man who fought for his beliefs until the last day.