More post-Soviet wars in the 90s

Tocomocho

What other plausible post-Soviet conflicts in the vein of the Caucasus and Yugoslavia could arise in the early 90s in Eastern Europe and how would they go? Poland tries to recover Lviv/Lwow/Lvov? Romania invades Moldova? Hungary invades Romania or Yugoslavia? Bulgaria invades Yugoslavia? Violent Czechoslovakia breakup? Baltics? How about Central Asia?
 

Monk78

Tocomocho said:
What other plausible post-Soviet conflicts in the vein of the Caucasus and Yugoslavia could arise in the early 90s in Eastern Europe and how would they go? Poland tries to recover Lviv/Lwow/Lvov? Romania invades Moldova? Hungary invades Romania or Yugoslavia? Bulgaria invades Yugoslavia? Violent Czechoslovakia breakup? Baltics? How about Central Asia?
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Mujahideen invasion of Central Asia ( financed by saudis gulf states led by Pakistani military advisors) to form a super emirate
 

Raferty

It could have been a lot nastier but I think the satellite states in Eastern Europe are the wrong place to look - most of them really just wanted to transition and knew that raising border claims was a quick way to get put in the naughty category by the institutions they were looking to join.

Rather, Russia could have broken up even more - there was a movement for Tatarstan independence that was solved by essentially devolving a lot of sovereignty, for example. The North Caucasus had the Chechnya problem, but Dagestan also had separatist tendencies.

I would imagine if Gennady Zyuganov took over in 1996, you might have seen hostilities in Chechnya re-emerge earlier than in OTL as there was significant criticism of Yeltsin over the uneasy truce. A Kravchuk victory in 1994 in Ukraine might also tip off a regionalist conflict if cooler heads do not prevail - the Communist Party in Ukraine after all was of the Zyuganovite tendency and was significantly more radical in the 1990s than the Party of Regions would be in the 2000s.

The Georgian Civil War could have been much bloodier and long lasting had Shevernadze not taken over after the coup, as the Zviadist tendency was significantly less willing to bite its tongue and allow for the OTL status quo and Russia could have been drawn much deeper in.

One also must consider what would have happened had the National Salvation Front succeeded in 1993 - you might have had multiple revanchist conflicts emerge as public opinion was furious over the ramifications of the dissolution by then. What happened in OTL of course was terrible for Russian Democracy, but the alternative might not have been much better.
 
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Coiler

Kazakhstan with its more Russian north is always brought up as the simmering frozen conflict that could always explode if the stars align right (or, rather, I should say, wrong.)
 

crazyhorse18

Banned
Yeltsin was ready to start war with Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in 1993. Luckily the compromise was reached with local elites...
 

Father Maryland

Some more wars in the Stan ex Soviet Republics potentially involving nationalist or Islamic militant groups seeking to ethnicly cleanse ethnic Russians from the Stans which degenerate into the Stans ultimately being divided de facto with heavily armed ethnic Russians effectively building their own enclave states within th e Stans. Not internationally recognized but de facto independent zones where the Ethnic russian militias ( supplied with arms by Moscow) carving out their own de facto independent states that ultimately result in a locked war with their borders being heavily fortified. Sort of like what Turkey did in North Cyprus.
 

Raferty

Father Maryland said:
Some more wars in the Stan ex Soviet Republics potentially involving nationalist or Islamic militant groups seeking to ethnicly cleanse ethnic Russians from the Stans which degenerate into the Stans ultimately being divided de facto with heavily armed ethnic Russians effectively building their own enclave states within th e Stans. Not internationally recognized but de facto independent zones where the Ethnic russian militias ( supplied with arms by Moscow) carving out their own de facto independent states that ultimately result in a locked war with their borders being heavily fortified. Sort of like what Turkey did in North Cyprus.
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Unlikely to work - the local elites in these countries were intensely Russified in terms of where they hid their money and how they governed, th security organs were all basically KGB successors.

Now, ethnic tensions are real enough but the Russian population is disproportionately urban and apolitical, not likely to get chesty over separatist tendencies.

This could change if the Afghanistan Conclusion goes differently and the Taliban goes north, or an Islamist movement in Central Asia republics proves more popular and powerful than in OTL.
 

Father Maryland

Raferty said:
Unlikely to work - the local elites in these countries were intensely Russified in terms of where they hid their money and how they governed, th security organs were all basically KGB successors.

Now, ethnic tensions are real enough but the Russian population is disproportionately urban and apolitical, not likely to get chesty over separatist tendencies.

This could change if the Afghanistan Conclusion goes differently and the Taliban goes north, or an Islamist movement in Central Asia republics proves more popular and powerful than in OTL.
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I was actually thinking that their is weaker control/more chaotic political situations in the newly independent Stans. A more militant surge of Islamic paramilitary becomes popular and with the weaker central government control (with multiple contenders trying to take power) that the paramilitaries grow and one of their top aims is to "Purify" their nations by driving out or forcibly converting the ethnic Russian populace. The Ethnic Russians react by forming their own paramilitaries either using left over Soviet Gear or weapons clandestinely sent by the Russian government. In the end the Stans are much more chaotic and have a number of Enclave states of ethnic Russians who fought and counter ethnic cleansed themselves. A mix of the post Soviet Caucusus, Northern Cyprus, modern Eastern Ukraine and Yugoslavia in the 90s.
 

Canuck Wingnut

dsp19 said:
Nagorno-Karabakh (RL conflict that's been on an off since the late 80s) could always be nastier
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Transnistria (OTL breakaway unrecognized state in Moldova) is another post-soviet conflict that saw some violence OTL but could easily have been much bigger and nastier.
 
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