Search for Security – Case of Serbia

“Search for Security – Case of Serbia” is the name of the book written by Professor Dr. Miroslav Hadžić. Dangraf, newspaper publisher from Belgrade, enabled the editing of the book. In the Introductory Remarks, the author pointed out that there were several reasons that guided him to gather in one place mostly already published studies of his new researches and to present them to the public. All the papers in the book were created after Slobodan Milošević’s regime had been changed. “Therefore”, said Hadžić, “the achievements and failures of the new governments in their atemptsto readjust the inherited security sector were comprehended by these papers. We primarily tried to find the reasons for absence of the radical reform of inherited Army, and also the reasons for postponement to set up the civil and democratic control over it. At the same time, the perspectives for security integration of SCG into the Euro-Atlantic community were also examined”.

In the paper Instead of the Foreword (Serbian Army Circle), Professor Dr. Hadžić assessed that “the Serbian military-state circle had been closed with Yugoslavia, after eighty years, paradoxically. Serbia, together with Montenegro, brought into Yugoslavia boththe state and the Army. They got out of Yugoslavia without any of the two.. Watchful control of the renamed vestiges of Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) characterized their temporary stay in pseudo-Yugoslavia. Serbia and Montenegro entered into the State Union under the escort of  the same Army, which had been waiting for amother renaming.   There is no proof that this Army will be reformed for that occasion. Even if actual potentates wanted to do that, it is not sure that the new Union will last long enough in order to reform the Army. The witness of that are numerous “holes” in the Constitutional Chapter, because of which the statement that the new union “Serbia and Montenegro (will) have the Army, which is under civil and democratic control” could easily become an empty declaration.

The book is divided into several chapters. In the chapter Obstacles to Future Security in South-Eastern Europe – A view from Serbia, the perspectives for security stabilization of South-Eastern Europe, as well as the possible priorities in that sense are considered. Security Sector Reform Concept is the chapter, which  deals with the definition of the term “security sector reform”, the changes in the security environment and also with dimensions of security sector reform. The chapter Wandering Army contains the subtitles “Origin’s Effect”, “Paradigm ‘Pavković’” and “Necessary Stride”. The chapter A Parliament Pushed Aside  deals with the normative heritage and origins of parliamentary powerlessness. The chapter Civil-Military’s Attributes of FRY contains “‘Pavković Case’” and “Comparative Insight”, while the chapter Citizen in Uniform considers the main traits of the  inheritance, as well as the necessity  of  research into the status of the human rights in Yugoslav Army. In the last chapter named New Constitutional Position of the Army, the existing situation and the contours of new solution  are analysed through the Constitutional Chapter’s analysis.