>>This seems to be a pattern, at least among American conflicts (I have not studied others very much). As the combatants grow into old age, it's not worth carrying a grudge around.
If you've ever been to Serbia/Croatia/Montenegro this is evident - to the point of being a little bit weird. You see the former combatants doing business and living next to one another and it's hard to believe that less than 15 years ago they were roaming around in paramilitary groups murdering each other. Going to Belgrade as an American, I expected at least a little bit of animosity...considering you could still see strafing/bombing damage from American bombs in certain parts of the city... No one cared - and Belgrade seemed to be doing pretty well. It was bizarre. But damn beautiful place - would recommend Belgrade, St. Stephan in Montenegro (actually, don't go there...you will ruin it) and Dubrovnik.
I was in Belgrade in 1999 about five days before the US started bombing the place. The people there were very friendly to me, even when they knew I was an American. The border guards sure scrutinized me and my passport (I had a transit visa), but they didn't give me any trouble other than that.
One of my more memorable experiences was visiting Tito's mausoleum. It was very quiet and I was the only person there. I got the impression that nobody was interested in visiting Tito anymore. The elderly security guard there was very happy to seem me and he talked to me in rudimentary German, the only language we had in common. As a gift he gave me some book discussing some Yugoslavian communist party conference back in the 60s with an English translation. Nice guy.
I was traveling from Sarajevo (a sad city at the time) on a bus through the Serbian part of Bosnia, and I was a little nervous about that. There were no problems though. Our bus did break down in a snowstorm and we were stuck there next to the road for about six hours, so I had plenty of time to talk to the other passengers (all Serbian as far as I could tell). They were either friendly or didn't pay attention to me, probably because most didn't speak any language I knew.
A couple in front of me on that bus were telling me that they heard that the Americans were about to bomb Belgrade at any moment. There was no animosity toward me personally, though: they were friendly people. I thought that was nonsense because the news had been talking about that for months and nothing seemed to be coming out of it. It turned out that in the few weeks I'd been traveling that things had gotten much more serious. I might have reconsidered traveling through Serbia if I knew things had gotten that serious. I saw a newspaper in Greek a few days after I left the country showing Belgrade and pictures of stealth bombers. I knew then that the people I was talking to had been right.
I haven't been to that region since that time, but I'd love to go again. I have lots of memories of friendly people.
If you've ever been to Serbia/Croatia/Montenegro this is evident - to the point of being a little bit weird. You see the former combatants doing business and living next to one another and it's hard to believe that less than 15 years ago they were roaming around in paramilitary groups murdering each other. Going to Belgrade as an American, I expected at least a little bit of animosity...considering you could still see strafing/bombing damage from American bombs in certain parts of the city... No one cared - and Belgrade seemed to be doing pretty well. It was bizarre. But damn beautiful place - would recommend Belgrade, St. Stephan in Montenegro (actually, don't go there...you will ruin it) and Dubrovnik.