Communication: Wrap‐up on the cost of the gulf war

This paper discusses how crises and war may “disrupt” company activities, and how companies adapt to these disruptions. Croatia is used as a case study. The original hypothesis was that war led to breaks in physical flows: in other words, that companies experienced difficulties in importing and obtaining supplies of goods. Instead, it appears that loss of customers and severely worsened conditions of payment were the principal problems for Croatian companies. Although it does not fall within the scope of this investigation, it is interesting to note that the Croatian government has not imposed any direct rationing on the industrial sector, but rather via the banking system.     

Storming to partition: Croatia,the United States,and Krajina in the Yugoslav War

To many scholars and policymakers, ‘partition’ offers the most efficacious means of resolving ethnic-civil wars. Others reject partition as a solution, citing flaws (both logical and empirical) and harmful international implications should such an approach become commonplace. What has been missing from this debate is an understanding of how the process of partition unfolds. In this article we examine such a process, the case of the Krajina in the war in Yugoslavia, 1994–1995. The US aligned itself with Croatia against Serbs rebelling in the Krajina region of Croatia. The culmination of this alignment occurred in August 1995 when Croatian forces initiated ‘Operation Storm’ (Oluja) against Croatian Serb insurgents. Croatian forces effectively cleansed the Krajina of its Serbian population. Eager to initiate a diplomatic peace process, Washington welcomed the Croatian operation, and largely because of Operation Storm, negotiations at Dayton became possible.     

The economic policy of acquiring foreign currency in wartime: The example of Croatia

This paper attempts to describe the methods employed by the Croatian government in order to acquire the foreign currency which was essential for strategic imports during the period 1991–1995. The starting point for this was the fact that foreign currency was in the hands of Croatian households, export companies, and Croatian companies abroad. The Croatian central bank gained access to households’ foreign currency principally by gaining their confidence. It gained access to companies’ currency by means of “export rights”, and perhaps also as a result of the integration of political and economic positions which was a relic of the former Yugoslavia.     

Fighter aircraft acquisition in Croatia: failure of policy delivery

The possibility for Croatia to obtain new fighter aircraft is not new, as this option has been publicly debated for at least a decade. A sudden decision to advance the acquisition of a limited number of fighter aircraft was made in 2017 with an international tendering process concluding in early 2018. Through open source material, this paper will look at this procurement process by examining the relationship between policy and strategic thinking on the one side, and policy delivery on the other, and evaluate why the tendering process failed in achieving envisaged results. The paper concludes that the problems facing the Croatian aircraft acquisition process stem from at least two interrelated factors: firstly, at the operational level, the failure of the procurement was the direct result of mismanaged tendering procedures linked to the wider public administration reform process; and secondly, at the strategic level, inherently complex civil-military relations and related cultural aspects which have not been adequately addressed over the past decades. The result was a failure to deliver on government policy, something which this paper argues will need to be addressed over the medium to long term.