Why did the Troubles not descend into a Bosnia like scenario?

NoCrackHaving · 06-01-2016 4:27pm #1

Despite the conflicts having similar issues regarding unity with different countries and issues of religion with the British army playing the role of the JNA Northern Ireland never ignited to the same extent as Bosnia with no general open fighting or the various ethnic cleansing and genocide that occured in the Balkans. What is everyone's take as to why this was? Basically why did Northern Ireland not explode into open civil war.

As far as I can make out some the more extreme loyalists had ethnic cleansing plans drawn up but nothing ever came to fruition. My own thoughts mainly relate to access to weaponry, nearly everyone in the former Yugoslavia had (still has) access to a gun, something which isn't the case in Northern Ireland. Also, possibly the lack of open military support by the Irish government versus say Serbia or Croatia could be a cause?

What's everyone's take on it?

zoobizoo · 06-01-2016 4:30pm

Common sense and a lot of people who are in the middle ground who don't care.

Couldn't see any of my friends, family, co-workers or peers picking up a gun for religious / political / nationalistic reasons.

riffmongous · 06-01-2016 4:51pm

In old Yugoslavia all of the sides had access to large amounts of trained personal right from the start as all the regions had their own defence and police forces before the war broke out, which was not the case in northern ireland where the RUC, B-specials were unionist controlled, even before the British army got involved, while the IRA where in a very low state of readiness and had no modern equipment

riffmongous · 06-01-2016 4:55pm

zoobizoo wrote: »

Common sense and a lot of people who are in the middle ground who don't care.

Couldn't see any of my friends, family, co-workers or peers picking up a gun for religious / political / nationalistic reasons.

In fairness a lot of people started off that way and only became radicalised by events that affected them directly

Del.Monte · 06-01-2016 8:28pm

It might be PC to say it, but the RUC, UDR, British Army and Gardai kept the lid on the situation and that's why it didn't explode Bosnia style.

riffmongous · 07-01-2016 12:36am

Del.Monte wrote: »

It might be PC to say it, but the RUC, UDR, British Army and Gardai kept the lid on the situation and that's why it didn't explode Bosnia style.

That's an interesting way of looking at it, I would have said the conduct of the BA/UDR/RUC is probably one of the reasons it got so bad

Manach · 07-01-2016 1:13am

Coincidently I am reading through Mazower's The Balkans. From that I reckon that riffmongous' post would be the core of the issue. In that one side had a preponderance of military equipment and support. Thus the only possible scenario that would could have mirrored the Balkans would be if the republicians would have provoked a crackdown like that of Kosovo : however the geopolitic realties would have precluded any type of outside intervention.

NoCrackHaving · 07-01-2016 11:41am

zoobizoo wrote: »

Common sense and a lot of people who are in the middle ground who don't care.

Couldn't see any of my friends, family, co-workers or peers picking up a gun for religious / political / nationalistic reasons.

Most people are like that in the beginning, many of the soldiers in the Balkans were originally dentists, teachers, waiters etc. who became radicalised. It doesn't take much for people to quickly become fighters.

riffmongous wrote: »

In old Yugoslavia all of the sides had access to large amounts of trained personal right from the start as all the regions had their own defence and police forces before the war broke out, which was not the case in northern ireland where the RUC, B-specials were unionist controlled, even before the British army got involved, while the IRA where in a very low state of readiness and had no modern equipment

Manach wrote: »

Coincidently I am reading through Mazower's The Balkans. From that I reckon that riffmongous' post would be the core of the issue. In that one side had a preponderance of military equipment and support. Thus the only possible scenario that would could have mirrored the Balkans would be if the republicans would have provoked a crackdown like that of Kosovo : however the geopolitic realties would have precluded any type of outside intervention.

Ah ok, so everyone seems to be in agreement here, lack of weaponry and trained personnel on the Republican side is the core reason that prevented it. Does anyone know were the PIRA ever capable of importing weapons on a Bosnian style scale, eg artillery, tanks etc. or was this simply too expensive for them?

Del.Monte · 07-01-2016 12:10pm

NoCrackHaving wrote: »

Most people are like that in the beginning, many of the soldiers in the Balkans were originally dentists, teachers, waiters etc. who became radicalised. It doesn't take much for people to quickly become fighters.

Ah ok, so everyone seems to be in agreement here, lack of weaponry and trained personnel on the Republican side is the core reason that prevented it. Does anyone know were the PIRA ever capable of importing weapons on a Bosnian style scale, eg artillery, tanks etc. or was this simply too expensive for them?

Er, no! I don't agree at all. It was the security services, albeit with one hand tied behind their backs, that prevented chaos.

What on earth do you think the IRA would have wanted with tanks and artillery? If nothing else was learnt from 1798 and 1916, it was that an armed insurrection needed to be a guerrilla campaign rather than facing the enemy in the field. What do you think the British Army would have done if they saw a column of tanks approaching the border, or perhaps you think that the IRA would have had air support as well. :rolleyes:

laoch na mona · 07-01-2016 12:17pm

they were very different conflicts, Balkans conflict was the result of the collapse of the state (the situation in libya post Gaddafi, would be similar) which included the break up of the national army which gave the various elites vying for power troops to use to assert their position among new ethnic lines. In the north the conflict was largely the result of the sectarian nature of the state, those fighting on the nationalist side had no desire to wipe out protestants while most unionists were reassured by the existence of the sectarian state which is why aside from things like the burning of bombay street and the glenane gang the unionists never engaged in mass level ethnic cleansing.
If they felt less secure and had better access to weapons and were the IRA not able to act as a sufficient deterrent they might have, considering they mostly killed innocent Catholics. But for a Balkan style situation both sides have to be interested in sectarian violence, in the noth sectarian violence was distinctly protestant against catholic

cml387 · 09-01-2016 7:59pm

There were also three distinct ethnic groups in Yugolavia remember. People tend to forget that the Croats had no warm feelings for the muslims either.
And as much as people may disagree, there were two states in the Northern conflict, the Republic and the UK who for all their differences had were trying to keep a lid on the situation.

LordSutch · 09-01-2016 8:10pm

Del.Monte wrote: »

It might not be PC to say it, but the RUC, UDR, British Army and Gardai kept the lid on the situation and that's why it didn't explode Bosnia style.

Why wouldn't it be PC to say it?

You hit the nail on the head. Also you must remember that the violent groups on both sides (Loyalist Vs Republican) were minorities with their respective communities. Most Nationalists & Unionists were/are good upstandning people who would never get involved in the exploits carried out by the IRA/UVF/INLA/UDA ertc etc etc.

The security forces on both sides of the border did indeed keep a lid on it.

Del.Monte · 09-01-2016 8:17pm

LordSutch wrote: »

Why wouldn't it be PC to say it?

You hit the nail on the head. Also you must remember that the violent groups on both sides (Loyalist Vs Republican) were minorities with their respective communities. Most Nationalists & Unionists were/are good upstandning people who would never get involved in the exploits carried out by the IRA/UVF/INLA/UDA ertc etc etc.

The security forces on both sides of the border did indeed keep a lid on it.

Because, these days it's popular/PC to portray what went on between 1969/99..as a war, whereas the reality was quite different. Makes me wonder about the War of Independence..was it a 'war' or was it more of the same? I was certainly brought up with a different narrative by my grandparents - and from their description it sounded much the same as the more recent 'troubles'.

laoch na mona · 11-01-2016 9:09am

the udr worked hand in glove with loyalist paramilitaries (read leathal allies) who murdered people based on their religion, they defiantly didn't help keep a lid on the conflict

Del.Monte · 11-01-2016 11:02am

laoch na mona wrote: »

the udr worked hand in glove with loyalist paramilitaries (read leathal allies) who murdered people based on their religion, they defiantly didn't help keep a lid on the conflict

Again from Wiki:

18 UDR soldiers were convicted of murder and 11 for manslaughter.[198] Between 1970 and 1985, 99 were convicted of assault, whilst others were convicted of armed robbery, weapons offences, bombing, intimidation and attacks on Catholics, kidnapping, and membership of the UVF.[199] Only a small fraction of the 40,000 men and women who served with the regiment[200] were involved in such criminal activities, but the proportion was higher than for the regular British Army or RUC.[199]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Defence_Regiment

riffmongous · 11-01-2016 5:44pm

Anyway I still don't see how you can say it was the law enforcement that kept the North from turning into a Bosnia style war, it was never on in the first place. At the start of the war even the very poorly equipped Bosnian army had 80,000 men and some sort of mixed artillery brigade. The VRS had an airforce with 4 squadrons and by Nov 93 the HVO had 4 armoured brigades with 50 tanks. In 1969 the IRA were reduced to handing out pick-axe handles to the people at Unity Flats.

From what I've read on the 1969 riots and the sectarian cleansing that happened then it seems like it was the deployment of the army that helped put a stop to the burning out of the Falls Road area alright, the RUC were nowhere to be found. Such an irony then that the army were directly responsible for a lot of the other escalations that happened in the next years.

Lt Dan · 12-01-2016 6:42pm

NoCrackHaving wrote: »

Despite the conflicts having similar issues regarding unity with different countries and issues of religion with the British army playing the role of the JNA Northern Ireland never ignited to the same extent as Bosnia with no general open fighting or the various ethnic cleansing and genocide that occured in the Balkans. What is everyone's take as to why this was? Basically why did Northern Ireland not explode into open civil war.

As far as I can make out some the more extreme loyalists had ethnic cleansing plans drawn up but nothing ever came to fruition. My own thoughts mainly relate to access to weaponry, nearly everyone in the former Yugoslavia had (still has) access to a gun, something which isn't the case in Northern Ireland. Also, possibly the lack of open military support by the Irish government versus say Serbia or Croatia could be a cause?

What's everyone's take on it?

Britain weren't as big a shower of "basterds" as Rebel songs let us believe.

America ?

The South unlikely unwilling and unable to support Republicans ? especially as the 1980's rolled along..

The interesting question should be, taken into account the ability of the PIRA to attack London, Manchester and elsewhere in England , that the UVF and LVF did not bomb Dublin and bordering Counties more often

Also, Unionists had what they wanted politically. They were in Wesminster. The RUC had enough resources to maintain the various IRA groups. There was infighting between the Old IRA and Provo's too. Even in South Armagh the British forces had enough resources to keep an eye on the Provos

Europe and NATO turned its back on Bosnia until it was too late. Bosnia is a big reason why Brussels were so desperate to ensure that the EU had more power in implementing a response force (ie Amsterdam Treaty) if war broke out in the European region again.

Contrary to popular belief , ethnically cleansing was not really priority number 1, 2, 3, 4.... on the PIRA list. Nor was it on the list of DUP and UUP

riffmongous · 13-01-2016 3:48pm

Lt Dan wrote: »

Britain weren't as big a shower of "basterds" as Rebel songs let us believe.

America ?

The South unlikely unwilling and unable to support Republicans ? especially as the 1980's rolled along..

The interesting question should be, taken into account the ability of the PIRA to attack London, Manchester and elsewhere in England , that the UVF and LVF did not bomb Dublin and bordering Counties more often

Also, Unionists had what they wanted politically. They were in Wesminster. The RUC had enough resources to maintain the various IRA groups. There was infighting between the Old IRA and Provo's too. Even in South Armagh the British forces had enough resources to keep an eye on the Provos

Europe and NATO turned its back on Bosnia until it was too late. Bosnia is a big reason why Brussels were so desperate to ensure that the EU had more power in implementing a response force (ie Amsterdam Treaty) if war broke out in the European region again.

Contrary to popular belief , ethnically cleansing was not really priority number 1, 2, 3, 4.... on the PIRA list. Nor was it on the list of DUP and UUP

The answer to that lies in a file somewhere in Britain but we'll never see it

Coillte_Bhoy · 21-01-2016 7:23pm

Del.Monte wrote: »

Again from Wiki:

18 UDR soldiers were convicted of murder and 11 for manslaughter.[198] Between 1970 and 1985, 99 were convicted of assault, whilst others were convicted of armed robbery, weapons offences, bombing, intimidation and attacks on Catholics, kidnapping, and membership of the UVF.[199] Only a small fraction of the 40,000 men and women who served with the regiment[200] were involved in such criminal activities, but the proportion was higher than for the regular British Army or RUC.[199]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Defence_Regiment

Surely you mean convicted?

turnikett1 · 24-01-2016 10:50am

It's also important to note that the population of Northern Ireland was much much smaller than that of former Yugoslavia, (1.5m compared to 23m), so a conflict of a similar magnitude would've been impossible really.

Why did the Troubles not descend into a Bosnia like scenario?

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