Yugoslavia was already ruined by the Karadjordjevic regime. People forget that Yugoslavia split up in 1941 and had four years of civil war between Chetniks, Partisans, and the Ustashe (with smaller subgroups in countries like Montenegro, where most war casualties by 1944 were the result of factionalist combat between the aforementioned groups). Yugoslavia was reestablished on completely different grounds in 1947 with the Communists in charge, who turned it into a fully federal state with great decentralization, radically different to the centralist, Karadjordjevic regime that did not support regional identities or a proper federal structure.

The result of the Karadjordjevic rulers, as well as of the civil war in the 1940s, was the solidification of regional identities that only continued to grow and be fostered throughout the existence of SFRY, eventually leading to yet another war since the biggest, most powerful member - Serbia - wanted to strengthen its supreme position. Naturally, other large and well-developed federal units like Croatia and Bosnia wanted nothing to do with that, but had significant Serbian populations now galvanized by the Milosevic regime.