Why were there civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia, but not in Slovenia or Macedonia?

Question

It seems that during the breakup of Yugoslavia there were civil wars during speakers of the (then officially) same language - Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, but not, e.g., between Serbs and Slovenians. Is there any specific reason for this?

Answer 1

Among other (geostrategic) reasons, the most plausible explanation is because in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia there were regions in which considerable Serb populations had lived since long ago (for example in Krajina in Croatia from the 16th century). During a hegemonic treatment of other nations in the second Yugoslavia, the Serbs slowly planned and succeeded in populating these base Serb regions with more of their countrymen from Serbia. In the late 80s, these Serb populations were an argument to seize the land and form Great Serbia.

During the war, these factions were funded and supplied from Belgrade. It was much easier to maintain strategic control from regions where the people directly supported the army (which was completely Serb at the time of Yugoslav breakup). That is why the Serbs concentrated their efforts on Croatia and Bosnia, withdrawing all tanks and military from Slovenia, for example. If they had won the war, I assume that the international community would have completely accepted their idea to reoccupy Slovenia and Macedonia as well, under the name of Yugoslavia. Also, I assume that a condition for doing that would have been that they cling to the EU/US, and not Russia.

Answer 2

I think the perception of each other was the key issue there. Serbs view Slovenians and Macedonians as separate people (something like Russians view Estonians), so there wasn't that much of emotion when Slovenians declared independence (there was a brief intervention though).

However Croatian independence was a completely different story. Serbs had the idea of slav unity, and Croats were the integral part of this idea. Serbs did not accept the Croatian independence mainly because of that. A long trail of controversial historic events between two nations, religion contributed to the animosity between the two nations.