Publisher's Synopsis
In this volume the author analyzes the role played by the Yugoslav People's Army in the country's crisis, offering a theoretical framework using concepts of both regime and military legitimacy. After reviewing the army's position historically within a sociopolitical context, the book concentrates on the period after 1988. It includes an examination of the army's position in the multiple crises; consideration of Slovenia's disputes with the military and Serbia, which set the course of disintegration, and an evaluation of the impact of crisis on the military's sociopolitical and functional capabilities.;Gow analyzes the break-up of the communist party at the beginning of 1990 and the debates which followed - whether Yugoslavia should remain federal, become confederal or cease to be. He argues that regime relegitimation was tied to military relegitimation. He concludes that the army's behaviour made preservation of Yugoslavia - its priority - increasingly unlikely, whereas at the beginning of 1991, rapid restructuring, depoliticization and non-intervention might still have saved the country.
