Saying that the US was against the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia while at the same time supporting the delivery of arms to Croatia's nationalists and the training of KLA guerillas in Germany just does not make the mark.

There is clearly some confusion and misunderstanding here. Le me restate:

[ Upstate NY ] saying that the US was against recognition of Slovenia and Croatia while it [the US] was supporting at the same time the delivery of arms to Croatia's nationalists and the training of KLA guerillas in Germany just does not make the mark.

I thought that was clear, but sometimes, when you have to put your ideas on paper quickly, it's just not crystal clear. I hope now it is.

As for looking better if Germany went first, that would be easily done by standing aside, but instead the US denounced and blocked Germany's moves in the UN. This was well known at the time.

Blocked a German move in the UN? Germany has about as much power in the UN as Zanzibar (ok, a bit more). Are you suggesting that Germany's letter to the Secretary General of the UN informing him of German's intent to recognize Slovenia and Croatia in December 1991 was a "move at the UN"? France was against recognition at the time as was most of the EU - so there was no need for the US to "block" anything at the UN.

Let me repeat my reasons why the US was publicly against German haste to recognize:

1. Public posturing, for a number of reasons including keeping relations smooth with the rest of the EU which was against recognition.

2. US-Serb negotiations that were underway and that could have provided the US with a much better deal than the one it struck with Bonn - yes we're talking about spoils.

3. US-German disagreement about spoils.

Let's go back to 1991. The CIA plans for the breakup of Yugoslavia since the 70s.The "right" people are promoted to power - or supported by the US and Germany once they made it to the top. The arms are delivered in the 80s. Everything's ready to roll, when all of a sudden, the Soviet Union collapses. This provides an opportunity to the US to extend its influence over all of ex-Yugoslavia... which it tries to do, putting it at odds with Germany, on the other hand, which wants to consolidate its influence over an independent Slovenia and Croatia. There's disagreement about spheres of influence and who gets what. Political maneuvering ensues.

As a Swedish kind of death summarizes: Plausible? Sure. True? Dunno. Unless you are Kohl or Bush or Tudjman or Milosevic or Baker... or one of their close pals, chances are you won't know for sure which (if any) of these 3 hypotheses is the real reason behind what happened.

To conclude, I don't think that it serves your case to focus exclusively on this single issue of a US-German "public rift" in December 1991 as the key element disproving the thesis that the US's long term goal and interest was in the breakup of Yugoslavia and its forceful integration into Euro-Atlantic structures.