Western-financed Cold War Yugoslav arsenals fell into Serb nationalist hands

Evidence

During the cold war, the Yugoslav army, supported and financed by the Western powers, had stockpiled immense stores of weapons in hardened bunkers and had constructed weapons factories throughout Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in anticipation of a Soviet invasion that never came. In iggi, Serb nationalists seized control of most of those weapons. The advantage of the Serb army in heavy weapons over the Bosnians was estimated at anywhere from 20-I to loo-I. When the Serb army attacked Sarajevo in the spring of 1992, the Bosnian government was so poorly armed that it was gangs of criminals and black marketeers-the only groups with the weapons and organization needed to set up barricades and capture Serb armaments-that saved parts of the city from the genocidal assault. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 303

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the theme in ‘Grafting & Growth’ of infrastructure built for one purpose being repurposed — here military stockpiles seeded the genocide.