Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-6s2bv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-08-22T16:57:15.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Arsenal of the Global South: Yugoslavia’s Military Aid to Nonaligned Countries and Liberation Movements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2020

Milorad Lazic Open the ORCID record for Milorad Lazic [Opens in a new window]
Milorad Lazic*
Affiliation:
Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: lazicm@gwu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Yugoslavia’s military internationalism was one of the most practical expressions of the country’s policy of nonalignment. Beginning with Algeria in the 1950s until its demise in the 1990s, Yugoslavia was an ardent supporter of liberation movements and revolutionary governments in Africa and Asia. This article argues that Yugoslav military internationalism was at the heart of Yugoslavia’s efforts to reshape the post-1945 global order and represented an extension of Yugoslav revolution abroad. Military aid was an expression of personal identification of Yugoslavia’s “greatest generation” with decolonization struggle. However, Yugoslav military aid to other countries went beyond a single foreign policy issue. Yugoslav military internationalism touched upon many other issues that included problems related to finances, economic development, the acquisition and transfer of military technology, relations with the superpowers, national security, ideology and politics, and prestige and status in global affairs. By the end of the 1970s, with the departure of the World War II generation and the looming economic crisis, Yugoslav military involvement in the Global South became increasingly driven by economic reasons. Former Yugoslav republics, after a short hiatus in the 1990s during the wars for Yugoslavia’s succession, are still present in the arms trade in the Global South.

Keywords

colonialismCold WarYugoslavianon-alignment

Information

Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 49 , Issue 3: Special Issue on Internationalism in Times of Nationalism: Yugoslavia, Nonalignment, and the Cold War , May 2021 , pp. 428 - 445
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arhiv Jugoslavije. 2014. Dokumenta o spoljnoj politici Jugoslavije. Jugoslovensko-alžirski odnosi, 1956–1979. Beograd: Arhiv Jugoslavije. Google Scholar
Adamović, Ljubiša, Lempi, Džon, and Priket, Rasel. 1990. Američko-jugoslovenski ekonomski odnosi posle Drugog svetskog rata. Beograd: Radnička štampa.Google Scholar
Balkan Insight. 2016. The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. August 3. https://balkaninsight.com/2016/08/03/montenegro-opens-weapons-supply-line-to-saudi-arabia-08-02-2016/ (accessed on June 15, 2019.).Google Scholar
Bogetić, Dragan, and Životić, Aleksandar. 2010. Jugoslavija i Arapsko-izraelski rat 1967. Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju.Google Scholar
Broz, Josip Tito. 1960. Izgradnja socijalizma i uloga i zadaci Socijalističkog saveza radnog naroda Jugoslavije. Referat na V kongresu SSRNJ u Beogradu, 18 aprila 1960. Beograd: Kultura.Google Scholar
Byrne, Jeffrey James. 2016. Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Čavoški, Jovan. 2010. “Arming Nonalignment: Yugoslavia’s Relations with Burma and the Cold War in Asia (1950–1955).” The Cold War International History Project Working Paper. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.Google Scholar
Čavoški, Jovan. 2013. “On the Road to the Coup: Indonesia between the Non-Aligned Movement and China.” In 1965: Indonesia and the World, edited by Schaefer, Bernd and Wardaya, Baskara T. 66–82. Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama.Google Scholar
Čavoški, Jovan. 2019. “Yugoslavia’s Help Was Extraordinary: Political and Material Assistance from Belgrade to the MPLA in Its Rise to Power, 1961–1975.” Journal of Cold War Studies 21 (1): 125–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Basil. 1972. In the Eye of the Storm: Angola’s People. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company.Google Scholar
Dimić, Ljubodrag. 2014. Jugoslavija i hladni rat. Ogledi o spoljnoj politici Josipa Broza Tita (1944–1974). Beograd: Arhipelag.Google Scholar
Gleijeses, Piero. 2003. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Gleijeses, Piero. 2013. Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Grličkov, Aleksandar. 1979. Non-Alignment and Socialism as a World Process. Beograd: STP.Google Scholar
Iveković, Ivan. 1976. Afrika i socijalizam. Panorama socijalističkih opredjeljenja i zemljama crne Afrike. Beograd: Izdavački centar Komunist.Google Scholar
Jackson, Richard. 1986. The Non-Aligned, the UN, and the Superpowers. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Jakovina, Tvrtko. 2011. Treća strana Hladnog rata. Zagreb: Fraktura.Google Scholar
Jandrić, Miroslav. 2013. “Seventh Decade of the Military Technical Institute, 1948–2013.” Scientific Technical Review 63 (2): 5–25.Google Scholar
Kardelj, Edvard. 1979. Socialism and War. Beograd: Socialist Thought and Practice.Google Scholar
Laković, Ivan, and Tasić, Dmitar. 2016. The Tito–Stalin Split and Yugoslavia’s Military Opening toward the West, 1950–1954. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Lazić, Milorad. 2019. “Comrades in Arms: Yugoslav Military Aid to Liberation Movements of Angola and Mozambique, 1961–1976.” In Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’: Transnational Activism 1960–1990, edited by Dallywater, Lena Saunders, Chris, and Fonseca, Helder Adegar 151–180. Berlin: DeGruyter.Google Scholar
Markakis, John. 1966. “The Organisation of African Unity: A Progress Report.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 4 (2): 135–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matović, Jovan. 2003. Vojni poslovi Jugoslavije i svet XX veka. Beograd: Tetra GM.Google Scholar
Milivojević, Marko. 1990. Yugoslavia’s Military Industries. Bradford, UK: University of Bradford.Google Scholar
Milošević, Miladin, ed. 2013. Jugoslavija–Alžir. Zbornik radova sa naučne konferencije Alžir, 27. januar 2013. Beograd: Arhiv Jugoslavije.Google Scholar
Oreščanin, Bogdan. 1962. Vojni aspekti borbe za svetski mir, nacionalnu nezavisnost i socijalizam. Beograd: Vojno delo.Google Scholar
“Paris Attacks Weapons ‘made by Zastava Arms in Serbia.’” 2015. BBC News, November 28. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34954048.Google Scholar
Pečar, Zdravko. 1966. “Negde u Alžiru.” In Treći svetski mir. Historija pisana oružjem. Zagreb: Stvarnost.Google Scholar
Pečar, Zdravko. 1967. Alžir do nezavisnosti. Beograd: Prosveta, Institut za proučavanje radničkog pokreta.Google Scholar
Pierre, Andrew. 1982. The Global Politics of Arms Sales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramet, Sabrina. 1992. Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962–1991, 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Repe, Božo. 2001. Slovenci v osamdesetih letih. Ljubljana: Zveza zgodovinskih društev Slovenije.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Alvin. 1970. Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rusinow, Dennison. 1978. The Yugoslav Experiment, 1948–1974. Berkley, CA: The University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sellstrom, Tor. 1999. Liberation in Southern Africa—Regional and Swedish Voices. Interviews from Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the Frontline and Sweden. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikaninstitutet.Google Scholar
Spaskovska, Ljubica. 2017. The Last Yugoslav Generation: The Rethinking of Youth Politics and Cultures in Late Socialism. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Stamatović, Aleksandar. 2001. Vojna privreda druge Jugoslavije. Beograd: Vojnoizdavački zavod.Google Scholar
Westad, Odd Arne. 2017. The Cold War: A World History. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Yordanov, Radoslav. 2016. The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Životić, Aleksandar. 2007. “Jugoslovenska vojna pomoć Ujedinjenoj Arapskoj Republici 1967.” Istorija XX veka 1–2: 117–128.Google Scholar
Životić, Aleksandar. 2011. Forsiranje peska. Odred JNA na Sinaju, 1956–1967. Beograd: Medija centar Odbrana.Google Scholar
Zorić, Neđeljko. 2011. Zapisi jugoslovenskog diplomate, 1948–1983. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.Google Scholar