"Croatian Armed Forces will participate in European..." Topic

… Union Battle Group (EUBG) 2016.

"The Croatian Military Representative to NATO and the EU, Major General Mate Paden on 16 April 2015 signed the Memorandum of Understanding on participation of the Croatian Armed Forces in the EU Battlegroup…"

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The Croats acquitted themselves well in the Yugoslavian civil war/genocide in the '90's IIRC.

When they weren't dabbling in a bit of attempted genocide themselves, that is…

Now that was a 3-way religious conflict writ large.

Serbs (Eastern Orthodox Christians) vs. Croats (Roman Catholics) vs. Bosnians (Muslims), with the Bosnians getting the short end of the stick.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

More sinned against than sinning I think.

As for their modern forces, they seem reasonably well equipped, but not up to the first-line NATO standards.

But you can't beat recent combat experience – and they've got more 'full on modern war' experience than just about any other NATO army, given the rest of us have been basically doing COIN or pushing over Iraqs feeble conventional forces.

It does look like continuation of history, doesnt it?

The Croats have been serving Western powers since the days of the Papacy and Holy Roman Empire and provided some of the best light forces to combat the moslems.

They even contributed their name to a fashion accessory still popular today.. C·R·O·A·T also spelled C·R·A·V·A·T, they wore colorful silk scarves around their necks which were then emulated by French soldiers, leading to the common use of neckties to this day.

It's a bit more complex than that… the Ragusans (modern Dubrovnik) allied themselves with the Ottomans as a counter-balance to Venice…

But you can't beat recent combat experience – and they've got more 'full on modern war' experience than just about any other NATO army, given the rest of us have been basically doing COIN or pushing over Iraqs feeble conventional forces.

All true … if they had the same predilection for slaughter that they had for their former Yugoslavia neighbors. They could be the NATO/UN new Anti-Daesh/AQ force. However, using combat experience as a measure. IMO, many US, UK, etc., forces have the advantage. Especially on a tactical level.

If I recall correctly Croatia was pretty much responsible for defeating the Bosnian Serbs and lifting the siege of Sarajevo, so in my mind joins the list of militaries that did the world a favour, along with Vietnam (Cambodia 1979), Tanzania (Uganda 1979) and of course the allies in 1945.

They did however some pretty brutal things, especially to the Bosnians.

But as I said, more sinned against than sinning. If you ever go to Dubrovnik, the museum on top of Mount Srd is worth a visit.

What happened in the former Yugoslavia left a lot of it's denizens with [very] "dirty" hands … Sad but true, as we see when religion and ethnicity are very much in play during a conflict.

"If I recall correctly Croatia was pretty much responsible for defeating the Bosnian Serbs and lifting the siege of Sarajevo, so in my mind joins the list of militaries that did the world a favour"

You recall correctly (they at least defeated the Bosnian Serbs and created the conditions that enabled the siege of Sarajevo to be lifted), but they did it entirely for their own reasons. And yes, the Croats did commit a number of atrocities, but did not compare to the Serbs in this area.