The Armed Forces of Serbia and Montenegro included ground forces with internal and border troops, naval forces, air and air defense forces, and civil defense. From 1992 to 2003, the VSCG was called the Yugoslav Army, created from the remnants of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), the military of SFR Yugoslavia. The rump state, then named Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, participated in the Yugoslav Wars with limited direct intervention of its own armed forces. Following the end of the Wars and the constitutional reforms of 2003 by which the state was renamed "Serbia and Montenegro", the military accordingly changed its name. The military was heavily involved in combating Albanian separatists during the Kosovo War and Preševo Valley conflict, and also engaged NATO warplanes during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The country bordered Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Albania to the southwest. The state was founded on 27 April 1992 as a federation comprising the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro. In February 2003, it was transformed from a federal republic to a political union until Montenegro seceded from the union in June 2006, leading to the full independence of both Serbia and Montenegro.