Republic of Serbia (1992–2006)

The Republic of Serbia (Serbo-Croatian: Република Србија / Republika Srbija) was a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2003 and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. With Montenegro's secession from the union with Serbia in June 2006, both became sovereign states in their own right for the first time in nearly 88 years.

After the League of Communists of Yugoslavia collapsed in 1990, the Socialist Republic of Serbia led by Slobodan Milošević's Socialist Party (formerly the Communists) adopted a new constitution, declaring itself a constituent republic with democratic institutions within Yugoslavia, and the "Socialist" adjective was dropped from the official title. As Yugoslavia broke up, in 1992 Serbia and Montenegro formed a new federative state called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, known after 2003 as simply Serbia and Montenegro.

Serbia was not officially involved in the Bosnian or Croatian wars. However, the Serb rebel entities both sought direct unification with Serbia. SAO Krajina and later the Republic of Serbian Krajina sought to become "a constitutive part of the unified state territory of the Republic of Serbia". The Republika Srpska's political leader Radovan Karadžić declared that he did not want it to be in a federation alongside Serbia in Yugoslavia, but that Srpska should be directly incorporated into Serbia. While Serbia acknowledged both entities' desire to be in a common state with Serbia, both entities chose the path of individual independence and so the Serbian government did not recognize them as part of Serbia, or within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Although Serbia kept nominally out of the Yugoslav wars until 1998 when the Kosovo War broke out, the 1990s were marked by an economic crisis and hyperinflation, the Yugolav wars, a refugee crisis, and the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milošević. After the opposition came to power in 2000, Serbia (viewed in the international community differently from Montenegro whose leadership was in good terms with the West since 1998) began its transition in reconciliation with western nations, a decade later than most other east European countries. As a result of this change, Yugoslavia began to slowly re-integrate itself internationally following a period of isolation caused by sanctions that were now gently easing.