I agree that it was a tragedy, but the cultural and religious tensions have existed in the Balkans for centuries. Tito's strong leadership, charisma, "bratstvo i jedinstvo", etc., managed to keep it together, often by sheer force that suppressed nationalism. After he died, all it took for it to fall apart was a group of small-minded political pawns that filled the vacuum and infected the masses with their narrative, along with external influence from all sides that wanted their own piece of the pie.

Today each country might not be as relevant as Yugoslavia once was, but there's relative peace in the region, and the countries that are part of the EU today are significantly better off in many ways than they were before. It's a miracle that the Yugoslav experiment lasted as long as it did, so perhaps we should accept that the only way southern slavs can coexist is in independent states.

Pozdrav!