The Serbs and the Albanians

A contingent of ethnic Albanian military recruits is considerably larger than the ethnic Albanian percentage in the entire population, as their nationality is marked by an extremely high population growth rate. If they joined the army the Albanians would now comprise about 23.5 per cent of the entire number of soldiers doing their military service in the Yugoslav Army. Unlike them, the Serbs and Montenegrins account for almost 70 per cent of the entire population, but only 59.2 per cent of men are in the age group of candidates for the military service.

A growing tendency of the Albanian percentage in the entire population of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is obvious. The structure of the Yugoslav Army candidates will have changed in ten years, so that the percentage of the Albanians will have risen by 4, while that of the Serbs will have dropped by 1.5 per cent. If the population parameters remain unchanged it is quite clear that a number of Albanian candidates for the Yugoslav Army will potentially dominate in some 50 years. The situation in Macedonia is similar - less than 20 per cent of the Albanian population includes 27 per cent of the youths liable for recruitment. Just as it is with the Serbs from the FR Yugoslavia, the Macedonians have 58.2 per cent military conscripts in 67 percent inhabitants. A somewhat higher birth rate of the Macedonians compared with that of the Serbs doubles the time period necessary for the numbers of potential soldiers of Albanian and Macedonian nationalities to become equal. But, the ratio is identical at the moment: 1 to 2.

The Bosnian game where two play on one in any combination is also possible on the Serb-Macedonian-Albanian level. It is hard to imagine that the Orthodox believers will for a lasting alliance, after the fall-out. The hypothetical situation is, nevertheless, interesting. A military alliance between Yugoslavia and Macedonia would result in a "population of recruits" where every other recruit is a Serb, every fourth an Albanian and every eighth is a Macedonian. As it looks right now, merging into one army, which could later be more easily divided in blood, would benefit the Serbs, but also create favorable prospects for the Albanians. This arithmetic clearly shows the reason why the Macedonians, if they have already been forced to play "two on one," prefer the combination with the Greeks (through the Americans) and with "their own Albanians," rather than teaming up with their former party comrades from Serbia.