BY 1985, AFTER FOUR DECADES of the Cold War, Westerners had become accustomed to a new division of Europe between West and East that seemed to be permanent. A prosperous Western Europe allied with the United States stood opposed to a still-struggling Eastern Europe that remained largely subject to the Soviet Union. The division of Germany symbolized the new order, which seemed so well established. Yet within a few years, a revolutionary upheaval in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe brought an end to the Cold War and to the division of postwar Europe. Even the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a nation.
On August 19,1991, a group of Soviet leaders opposed to reform arrested Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, and tried to seize control of the government. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, led by Boris Yeltsin, poured into the streets of Moscow and Leningrad to resist the attempted coup. Some army units, sent out to enforce the wishes of the rebels, defected to Yeltsin’s side, and within days, the rebels were forced to surrender. This failed attempt to seize power had unexpected results as Russia and many of the other Soviet republics declared their independence. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union-one of the largest empires in world history-had come to an end, and a new era of cooperation between the successor states in the old Soviet Union and the nations of the West had begun.
As the world adjusted to the transformation from Cold War to post-Cold War sensibilities, other changes shaped the Western outlook. The demographic face of European countries changed as massive numbers of immigrants created more ethnically diverse populations. New artistic and intellectual currents, the continued advance of science and technology, the emergence of a Digital Age, the surge of the women’s liberation movement-all spoke of a vibrant, ever-changing world. At the same time, a devastating terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., in 2001 made the Western world vividly aware of its vulnerability to international terrorism. Moreover, a financial collapse in 2008 threatened the economic security of the Western world as well as the entire global economy. But most important of all, Western nations, like all nations on the planet, have become aware of the political and economic interdependence of the world’s nations and the global nature of our twenty-first-century problems.
Between 1945 and 1985, a new political order following the devastation of World War II had seemingly left the Western world divided permanently between a prosperous, capitalistic West and an impoverished, Communist East. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states underwent a revolutionary upheaval that dramatically altered the European landscape (see Map 30.1) and left many Europeans with both new hopes and new fears.
By 1980, it was becoming apparent to a small number of reformers in the Communist Party that the Soviet Union was seriously ailing. When one of these young reformers, Mikhail Gorbachev, was chosen as Party secretary in March 1985, a new era began in the Soviet Union.
THE GORBACHEV ERA Born into a peasant family in 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev combined farm work with school and received the Order of the Red Banner for his agricultural efforts. This award and his good school record enabled him to study law at the University of Moscow. After receiving his law degree in 1955, he returned to his native southern Russia, where he eventually became first secretary of the Party in the city of Stavropol (he had joined the Party in 1952) and then first secretary of the regional Party committee. In 1978, Gorbachev was made a member of the Party’s Central Committee in Moscow. Two years later, he became a full member of the ruling Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee. In March 1985, Party leaders elected him general secretary of the Party, and he became the new leader of the Soviet Union.
Educated during the years of reform under Khrushchev, Gorbachev seemed intent on taking earlier reforms to their logical conclusions. He had said to his wife on achieving power, “We cannot go on living like this.”1 By the 1980s, Soviet economic problems were obvious. Rigid, centralized planning had led to mismanagement and stifled innovation. Although the Soviets still excelled in space exploration, they had fallen behind the West in high technology, especially in the development and production of computers for private and public use. Most noticeable to the Soviet people was the decline in the standard of living. In February 1986, at the Twenty-Seventh Congress of the Communist Party, Gorbachev made clear the need for changes in Soviet society: “The practical actions of the Party and state agencies lag behind the demands of the times and of life itself.... Problems grow faster than they are solved. Sluggishness, ossification in the forms, and methods of management decrease the dynamism of work.... Stagnation begins to show up in the life of society.”2 Thus, from the start, Gorbachev preached the need for radical reforms.
The cornerstone of Gorbachev’s radical reforms was perestroika (per-uh-STROI-kuh), or “restructuring” (see the box on p. 930). At first, this meant only a reordering of economic policy as Gorbachev called for the beginning of a market economy with limited free enterprise and some private property. Gorbachev soon perceived, however, that in the Soviet system, the economic sphere was intimately tied to the social and political spheres. Attempting to reform the economy without political or social reform would be doomed to failure. One of the most important instruments of perestroika was glasnost (GLAHZ-nohst), or “openness.” Soviet citizens and officials were encouraged to discuss openly the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet Union. Pravda (PRAHV-duh), the official newspaper of the Communist Party, began to include reports of official corruption, sloppy factory work, and protests against government policy. The arts also benefited from the new policy. Previously banned works were now published, and music based on Western styles, such as jazz and rock, began to be performed openly.
Political reforms were equally revolutionary. At the Communist Party conference in 1988, Gorbachev called for the creation of a new Soviet parliament, the Congress of People’s Deputies, whose members were to be chosen in competitive elections. It convened in 1989, the first such meeting in Russia since 1918. Early in 1990, Gorbachev legalized the formation of other political parties and struck Article 6, which had guaranteed the “leading role” of the Communist Party, from the Soviet constitution. At the same time, Gorbachev attempted to consolidate his power by creating a new state presidency. The new position was a consequence of the separation of the state from the Communist Party. Hitherto, the position of first secretary of the Party had been the most important post in the Soviet Union, but as the Communist Party became less closely associated with the state, the powers of this office diminished correspondingly. In March 1990, Gorbachev became the Soviet Union’s first president.
One of Gorbachev’s most serious problems stemmed from the nature of the nation he led. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a truly multiethnic country, containing 92 nationalities and 112 recognized languages. Previously, the iron hand of the Communist Party, centered in Moscow, had kept a lid on the centuries-old ethnic tensions that had periodically erupted. As Gorbachev released this iron grip, tensions resurfaced, a by-product of glasnost that Gorbachev had not anticipated. Ethnic groups took advantage of the new openness to protest what they perceived as ethnically motivated slights. When violence erupted, the Soviet army, in disrepair since its ill-fated decade-long foray into Afghanistan, had difficulty controlling the situation.
The years 1988 to 1990 also witnessed the appearance of nationalist movements in the republics that made up the Soviet Union. Many were motivated by ethnic concerns, with calls for sovereignty and independence from Russian-based rule centered in Moscow. These movements sprang up first in Georgia in late 1988 and then in Latvia (LAT-vee-uh), Estonia (ess-TOH-nee-uh), Moldova (mohl-DOH-vuh), Uzbekistan (ooz-BEK-i-stan), Azerbaijan (az-ur-by-JAHN), and Lithuania (li-thuh-WAY-nee-uh). On March 11, 1990, the Lithuanian Supreme Council proclaimed Lithuania an independent state.
THE END OF THE SOVIET UNION During 1990 and 1991, Gorbachev struggled to deal with Lithuania and the other problems unleashed by his reforms. On the one hand, he tried to appease conservatives who complained about the growing disorder within the Soviet Union. On the other hand, he tried to accommodate the liberal forces, especially those in the Soviet republics, who increasingly favored a new kind of decentralized Soviet federation. In particular, Gorbachev labored to cooperate more closely with Boris Yeltsin (YELT-sun) (1931-2007), who had been elected president of the Russian Republic in June 1991.
By 1991, the conservative leaders of the traditional Soviet institutions-the army, government, KGB, and military industries-had grown increasingly worried about the impending dissolution of the Soviet Union and its impact on their own fortunes. On August 19, 1991, a group of these discontented rightists arrested Gorbachev and attempted to seize power. Gorbachev’s unwillingness to work with the conspirators and the brave resistance in Moscow of Yeltsin and thousands of Russians who had grown accustomed to their new liberties caused the coup to disintegrate rapidly. The actions of these right-wing plotters, however, served to accelerate the very process they had hoped to stop-the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Despite desperate pleas by Gorbachev, the Soviet republics soon moved for complete independence. Ukraine voted for independence on December 1, 1991, and a week later, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (bell-uh-ROOSS) announced that the Soviet Union had “ceased to exist” and would be replaced by the new and voluntary Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991, and turned over his responsibilities as commander in chief to Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia. By the end of 1991, one of the largest empires in world history had evaporated, and a new era had begun in its lands.
WHY DID THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSE? What caused the sudden collapse of the Soviet system? Some analysts in the United States argue that the ambitious defense policies adopted by the Reagan administration forced the Soviet Union into an arms race that it could not afford and that ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet economy. Most observers, however, believe that the fall of the Soviet Union was primarily a consequence of conditions inherent in the system, some of which have been pointed out in this and the previous chapter. For years, Soviet leaders had denied or ignored the massive inefficiencies in the Soviet economy. In the 1980s, time began to run out. The perceptive Mikhail Gorbachev tried to stem the decline with radical reforms, but by then it was too late.
One other factor should also be considered. One of the weakest aspects of the Soviet Union was its multiethnic character, with only a little more than half of the total population made up of ethnic Russians. As we have seen, many of the minority nationalities were demanding more autonomy or even independence for their regions. By the end of the 1980s, such demands brought about the final collapse of the Soviet system.
THE NEW RUSSIA A new power struggle soon ensued within Russia, by far the largest of the former Soviet republics. Yeltsin was committed to introducing a free market economy as quickly as possible, but the transition was not easy. Economic hardships and social disarray, made worse by a dramatic rise in the activities of organized crime mobs, led increasing numbers of Russians to support both former Communists and hard-line nationalists who tried to place new limits on Yeltsin’s powers. Yeltsin fought back and pushed ahead with plans for a new Russian constitution that would abolish the Congress of People’s Deputies, create a two-chamber parliament, and establish a strong presidency. A hard-line parliamentary minority resisted and in early October 1993 took the offensive, urging their supporters to take over government offices. Yeltsin responded by ordering military forces to storm the parliament building and arrest his hard-line opponents. Yeltsin used his victory to consolidate his power in parliamentary elections held in December.
During the mid-1990s, Yeltsin sought to implement reforms that would set Russia on a firm course toward a pluralistic political system and a market economy. But the new post-Communist Russia remained as fragile as ever. Growing economic inequality and rampant corruption aroused widespread criticism and shook the confidence of the Russian people in the superiority of the capitalist system over the one that had existed under Communist rule. A nagging war in the Caucasus – where the Muslim people of Chechnya (CHECH-nee-uh) sought national independence from Russia – drained the government’s budget and exposed the decrepit state of the once vaunted Red Army. Yeltsin won reelection as president in 1996, although his precarious health raised serious questions about his ability to govern.
THE PUTIN ERA At the end of 1999, Yeltsin suddenly resigned and was replaced by Vladimir Putin (POO-tin) (b. 1952), a former member of the KGB. Putin vowed to strengthen the role of the central government in managing the affairs of state. During the succeeding months, the parliament approved his proposal to centralize power in the hands of the federal government in Moscow.
The new president also vowed to return the breakaway state of Chechnya to Russian authority and to adopt a more assertive role in international affairs. Fighting in Chechnya continued throughout 2000, nearly reducing the republic’s capital city of Grozny (GRAWZ-nee) to ruins. In July 2001, Putin launched reforms, which included the unrestricted sale and purchase of land and tax cuts aimed at boosting economic growth and budget revenues. Although Russia soon experienced a budget surplus and a growing economy, serious problems remained.
Putin attempted to deal with the chronic problems in Russian society by centralizing his control over the system and by silencing critics-notably in the Russian media. Although he was criticized in the West for these moves, many Russians expressed sympathy with Putin’s attempts to restore a sense of pride and discipline in Russian society.
In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev (di-MEE-tree mehd-VYEH-dehf) (b. 1965) became president of Russia when Putin could not run for reelection under Russia’s constitution. Instead, Putin became prime minister, and the two men shared power. In 2012, however, despite public protests, Putin was again elected president to a six-year term.
Stalin’s postwar order had imposed Communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe. The process of sovietization seemed so complete that few people believed that the new order could be undone. But discontent with their Soviet-style regimes always simmered beneath the surface of these satellite states, and after Mikhail Gorbachev made it clear that his government would not intervene militarily, the Communist regimes fell quickly in the revolutions of 1989.
THE FALL Martial law had not solved Poland’s problems after it had been imposed in 1981, and in 1988, new demonstrations led the Polish regime to agree to free parliamentary elections-the first free elections in Eastern Europe in forty years. Bowing to the inevitable, the military regime allowed the newly elected Solidarity coalition to form a new government, thus ending forty-five years Lech Walesa, the head of Solidarity, was chosen as the new Polish president. In Hungary, the economy had sagged by the late 1980s, and in 1989, the Communist regime, aware of growing dissatisfaction, began to undertake reforms. But they came too late as new political parties called for Hungary to become a democratic republic. After elections in March 1990, a new coalition government was formed that committed Hungary to democratic government. Czechoslovakia, too, found a peaceful way to a new political system. Government attempts to suppress mass demonstrations in Prague and other cities in 1988 and 1989 only led to more and larger demonstrations. In December 1989, as demonstrations continued, the Communist government, lacking any real support, collapsed. President Gustav Husak resigned and at the end of December was replaced by Vaclav Havel, a longtime dissident playwright who had played an important role in bringing down the Communist government. Havel set out on a goodwill tour to various Western countries where he proved to be an eloquent spokesman for Czech democracy and a new order in Europe (see the box on p. 933).
Czechoslovakia’s revolutionary path was considerably less violent than Romania’s, where opposition grew as the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu rejected the reforms in Eastern Europe promoted by Gorbachev. Ceauşescu’s extreme measures to reduce Romania’s external debt led to economic difficulties. Although he was successful in reducing foreign debt, the sharp drop in living standards that resulted from those hardship measures angered many Romanians. A small incident became the spark that ignited heretofore suppressed flames of discontent. The ruthless crushing of a demonstration in Timisoara in December 1989 led to other mass demonstrations. After the dictator was booed at a mass rally on December 21, the army refused to support any more repression. Ceauşescu and his wife were captured on December 22 and tried and executed on Christmas Day. Leadership now passed into the hands of the hastily formed National Salvation Front.
AFTER THE FALL The fall of Communist governments in Eastern Europe during the revolutions of 1989 brought a wave of euphoria to Europe. The new structures meant an end to a postwar European order that had been imposed on unwilling peoples by the victorious forces of the Soviet Union. In 1989 and 1990, new governments throughout Eastern Europe worked diligently to scrap the remnants of the old system and introduce the democratic procedures and market systems they believed would revitalize their scarred lands. But this process proved to be neither simple nor easy. Most Eastern European countries had little or even no experience with democratic systems. Then, too, ethnic divisions, which had troubled these areas before World War II and had been forcibly submerged under Communist rule, reemerged with a vengeance. Finally, the rapid conversion to market economies also proved painful. The adoption of “shock-therapy” austerity measures led to much suffering. Unemployment, for example, climbed above 13 percent in Poland in 1992.
Nevertheless, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, many of these states, especially Poland and the Czech Republic, were making a successful transition to both free markets and democracy. In Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski (kwahsh-NYEFskee) (b. 1954), although a former Communist, was elected president in November 1995 and pushed Poland toward an increasingly prosperous free market economy. His successor, Lech Kaczynski (LEK kuh-ZIN-skee) (1949-2010), emphasized the need to combine modernization with tradition. In July 2010, Bronislaw Komorowski (brah-NEE-swahf koh-mor-RAHVskee) (b. 1952) was elected president to succeed Kaczynski, who had died in a plane crash in April. In Czechoslovakia, the shift to non-Communist rule was complicated by old problems, especially ethnic issues. Czechs and Slovaks disagreed over the makeup of the new state but were able to agree to a peaceful division of the country. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Vaclav Havel was elected the first president of the new Czech Republic. In Romania, the current president, Traian Basescu (tri-YAHN buh-SES-koo) (b. 1951), leads a country that is just beginning to show economic growth and the rise of a middle class.
The revival of the post-Cold War Eastern European states is evident in their desire to join NATO and the European Union (EU), the two major Cold War institutions of Western European unity. In 1997, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary became members of NATO. In 2004, ten nationsincluding Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania-joined the EU, Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007, and Croatia joined in 2013.
Yet not all are convinced that inclusion in European integration is a good thing. Eastern Europeans fear that their countries will be dominated by investment from their prosperous neighbors, while their counterparts in Western Europe are concerned about a possible influx of low-wage workers from the new member countries. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 also added to the economic problems of Eastern European countries.
Perhaps the most dramatic events took place in East Germany, where a persistent economic slump and the ongoing oppressiveness of the regime of Erich Honecker led to a flight of refugees and mass demonstrations against the regime in the summer and fall of 1989. After more than half a million people flooded the streets of East Berlin on November 4, shouting, “The wall must go!” the German Communist government soon capitulated to popular pressure and on November 9 opened the entire border with the West. Hundreds of thousands of Germans swarmed across the border, mostly to visit and return. The Berlin Wall, long a symbol of the Cold War, became the site of massive celebrations as thousands of people used sledgehammers to tear it down. By December, new political parties had emerged, and on March 18, 1990, in East Germany’s first free elections ever, the Christian Democrats won almost 50 percent of the vote.
The Christian Democrats supported rapid monetary unification, and on July 1, 1990, the economies of West and East Germany were united, with the West German deutsche mark becoming the official currency of the two countries. And after months of political negotiations between West and East German officials as well as the original four postwar occupying powers (the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union), political reunification was achieved on October 3, 1990. What had seemed almost impossible at the beginning of 1989 had become a reality by the end of 1990.
From its beginning in 1919, Yugoslavia had been an artificial creation. The peace treaties at the end of World War I combined Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes into a new south Slav state called Yugoslavia (known until 1929 as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes). After World War II, the dictatorial Marshal Tito had managed to hold the six republics and two autonomous provinces that constituted Yugoslavia together. After his death in 1980, no strong leader emerged, and his responsibilities passed to a collective state presidency and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. At the end of the 1980s, Yugoslavia was caught up in the reform movements sweeping through Eastern Europe. The League of Communists collapsed, and new parties quickly emerged.
The Yugoslav political scene was complicated by the development of separatist movements. In 1990, the republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia began to lobby for a new federal structure of Yugoslavia that would fulfill their separatist desires. Slobodan Milosevic (sluh-BOH-dahn mi-LOH-suh-vich) (1941-2006), who had become the leader of the Serbian Communist Party in 1987 and had managed to stay in power by emphasizing his Serbian nationalism, rejected these efforts. He asserted that these republics could be independent only if new border arrangements were made to accommodate the Serb minorities in those republics who did not want to live outside the boundaries of a Greater Serbian state. Serbs constituted 11.6 percent of Croatia’s population and 32 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s in 1991.
After negotiations among the six republics failed, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in June 1991. Milosevic’s government sent the Yugoslavian army, which it controlled, into Slovenia, without much success. In September 1991, it began a full assault against Croatia. Increasingly, the Yugoslavian army was becoming the Serbian army, while Serbian irregular forces played a growing role in military operations. Before a cease-fire was arranged, the Serbian forces had captured one-third of Croatia’s territory in brutal and destructive fighting.
THE WAR IN BOSNIA The recognition of independent Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Croatia by many European states and the United States early in 1992 did not stop the Serbs from tuming their guns on Bosnia. By mid-1993, Serbian forces had acquired 70 percent of Bosnian territory (see the box on p. 936). The Serbian policy of ethnic cleansing-killing or forcibly removing Bosnian Muslims from their lands-revived memories of Nazi atrocities during World War II. This account by one Muslim survivor from the town of Srebrenica (sreb-bruh-NEET-suh) is eerily reminiscent of the activities of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen (see Chapter 27):
When the truck stopped, they told us to get off in groups of five. We immediately heard shooting next to the trucks.... About ten Serbs with automatic rifles told us to lie down on the ground face first. As we were getting down, they started to shoot, and I fell into a pile of corpses. I felt hot liquid running down my face. I realized that I was only grazed. As they continued to shoot more groups, I kept on squeezing myself in between dead bodies.3
Almost 8,000 men and boys were killed in the Serbian massacre at Srebrenica. Nevertheless, despite worldwide outrage, European governments failed to take a decisive and forceful stand against these Serbian activities. By 1995, some 250,000 Bosnians (mostly civilians) had been killed, and 2 million others were left homeless.
Renewed offensives by mostly Muslim Bosnian government army forces and by the Croatian army regained considerable territory that had been lost to Serbian forces. Air strikes by NATO bombers, strongly advocated by U.S. president Bill Clinton, were launched in retaliation for Serb attacks on civilians and weakened the Serb military positions. All sides were now encouraged by the United States to end the war and met in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995 for negotiations. A formal peace treaty was signed in Paris on December 14 that split Bosnia into a loose union of a Serb republic (with 49 percent of the land) and a Muslim-Croat federation (with 51 percent of the land). NATO agreed to send a force of 60,000 troops (20,000 American troops made up the largest single contingent) to monitor the frontier between the new political entities (see Map 30.2).
THE WAR IN KOSOVO Peace in Bosnia, however, did not bring peace to the remnants of Yugoslavia. A new war erupted in 1999 over Kosovo, which had been made an autonomous province within Yugoslavia in 1974. Kosovo’s inhabitants were mainly ethnic Albanians who were allowed to keep their Albanian language. But Kosovo also had a Serbian minority who considered Kosovo sacred territory because it contained the site where the Ouoman Turks had defeated Serbian forces in the fourteenth century in a battle that became a defining moment in Serbian history (see Chapter 12).
In 1989, Yugoslav president Milosevic, who had become an ardent Serbian nationalist, stripped Kosovo of its autonomous status and outlawed any official use of the Albanian language. In 1993, some groups of ethnic Albanians founded the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and began a campaign against Serbian rule in Kosovo. When Serb forces began to massacre ethnic Albanians in an effort to crush the KLA, the United States and its NATO allies sought to arrange a settlement. After months of negotiations, the Kosovo Albanians agreed to a peace plan that would have given the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo broad autonomy for a three-year interim period. When Milosevic refused to sign the agreement, the United States and its NATO allies began a bombing campaign that forced the Yugoslavian government into compliance.
THE AFTERMATH Since 1991, Yugoslavia had been embroiled in an appalling and destructive war, largely caused by the policies of Slobodan Milosevic. By 2000, the Serbian people had finally tired of the violence and in the fall elections ousted Milosevic from power. The new Serbian government under Vojislav Kostunica (VOY-slahv kawh-STOO-neet-suh) (b. 1944) moved quickly to cooperate with the international community and begin rebuilding the Serbian economy. On June 28, 2001, the Serbian government agreed to allow Milosevic to be put on trial by an international tribunal for crimes against humanity for his ethnic cleansing policies throughout Yugoslavia’s disintegration. He died in prison in 2006 before his trial could be completed.
The fate of Bosnia and Kosovo has not yet been finally determined. Some 30,000 NATO troops remained in Bosnia for several years to keep the peace between the Serb republic and the Muslim-Croat federation. In 2004, about 7,000 troops from the European Union replaced the NATO contingent. More than thirty international organizations have been at work rebuilding schools, roads, and sewers.
In Kosovo, NATO military forces were brought in to maintain an uneasy peace, while United Nations officials worked to create democratic institutions and the European Union provided funds for rebuilding the region’s infrastructure. These efforts are ongoing but are complicated by the festering hatred between Kosovo Albanians and the remaining Serbs.
The last political vestiges of Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 2004 when the Kostunica government officially renamed the truncated country Serbia and Montenegro. Two years later, Montenegrins voted in favor of independence, and in 2008, Kosovo declared its independence as well. Thus, ninety years afrer Yugoslavia was cobbled together, all six of its constituent republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro) were once again independent nations, and a new one (Kosovo) had been born.