Abstract
While we have seen in the preceding chapters how South Africa has, over the years, acquired the capability for producing nuclear weapons, it is difficult to see any need for their development. We have seen in Chapter 3 that South Africa’s conventional military capability far exceeds that of her African neighbours even if they combined their efforts. Black African countries have never seriously threatened South Africa with military attack.
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Notes and References
On this point, see, for example: Richard K. Betts: Richard K. Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa?’, International Security, 4 (1979) 97, 100;
J. E. Spence, ‘South Africa: The Nuclear Option’, African Affairs, 80 (1981) 445–6;
Denis Venter, ‘South Africa and the International Controversy surrounding its Nuclear Capability’, Politikon, 5 (1978) 25–6.
William Epstein, The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control (New York: Macmillan, 1976) p. 210.
Richard K. Betts, ‘Preventing the Development of South African Nuclear Weapons’, in Joseph A. Yager (ed.), Nonproliferation and US Foreign Policy (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1980) p. 400.
Oye Ogunbadejo, ‘Africa’s Nuclear Capability’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 22 (1984) 25.
Ibid., pp. 25, 38; Tunde Adeniran, ‘Black Africa Reacts’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 38 (August/September 1982) 37.
See, in particular: Ali Mazrui, ‘Africa’s Nuclear Future’, Survival, 22 (1980) 76–9, and the reply by P.A. Towle in ibid., pp. 219–21.
Robert D’A. Henderson, ‘Nigeria: Future Nuclear Power?’, Orbis, 25 (1981) 413–15;
Ogunbadejo, ‘Africa’s Nuclear Capability’, p. 38; J’Bayo Adekanye, ‘Nigeria’s Investment in Nuclear Power: A Research Note’, Arms Control, 4 (1983) 49–60;
Oye Ogunbadejo, ‘Nuclear Capability and Nigeria’s Foreign Policy’, in Colin Legum (ed.), Africa Contemporary Record, Annual Survey and Documents, XVI, 1983–4 (New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1985) pp. A140–1.
See: ibid., pp. A141–3; Julius Emeka Okolo, ‘Nuclearization of Nigeria’, Comparative Strategy, 5 (1985) 138, 143. 150, 152;
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World Armaments and Disarmament, SIPRI Yearbook 1981 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1981) p. 309;
International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 1981–1982 (London: IISS, 1982) p. 21;
Henderson A, ‘Nigeria: Future Nuclear Power?’, pp. 416–17, 421–2; Tunde Adeniran, ‘Nuclear Proliferation and Black Africa: The Coming Crisis of Choice,’ Third World Quarterly, 3 (1981) 682.
Agrippah T. Mugomba, ‘The Militarisation of the Indian Ocean and the Liberation of Southern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Affairs, 4 (1979) 272–3;
Ashok Kapur, International Nuclear Proliferation: Multilateral Diplomacy and Regional Aspects (London: Praeger, 1979) pp. 254, 259;
Kenneth Adelman and Albion Knight, ‘Can South Africa go Nuclear?’, Orbis, 23 (1979) 642–3;
J. E. Spence, ‘The Republic of South Africa: Proliferation and the Politics of “Outward Movement”’, in Robert M. Lawrence and Joel Larus (eds), Nuclear Proliferation PHASE II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974) p. 210.
Richard K. Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa?’, International Security, 4 (1979) 104–5, 107;
Edouard Bustin, ‘South Africa’s Foreign Policy Alternatives and Deterrence Needs’, in Onkar Marwah and Ann Schulz (eds), Nuclear Proliferation and the Near-Nuclear Countries (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1975) pp. 223–4; Spence, ‘South Africa: The Nuclear Option’, pp. 447–8;
Robert S. Jaster, South Africa’s Narrowing Security Options, Adelphi Papers no. 159 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980) p. 44;
Robert S. Jaster, ‘Politics and the “Afrikaner Bomb”’, Orbis, 27 (1984) 846–7.
Richard K. Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb? South Africa’s Nuclear Potential’, in Joseph A. Yager (ed.), Nonproliferation and US Foreign Policy (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1980) p. 295;
L. H. Gann and Peter Duignan, South Africa: War, Revolution, or Peace? (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1978) p. 40.
George H. Quester, The Politics of Nuclear Proliferation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) p. 202.
Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa?’ p. 108; Bustin, ‘South Africa’s Foreign Policy Alternatives and Deterrence Needs’, p. 223; Spence, ‘South Africa: The Nuclear Option’, p. 448; Chester A. Crocker, South Africa’s Defense Posture: Coping with Vulnerability, The Washington Papers, vol. 9, no. 8 (Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 1981) p. 63.
Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa?’, p. 104; J. E. Spence, ‘Nuclear Weapons and South Africa — The Incentives and Constraints on Policy’, in Timothy M. Shaw and Kenneth A. Heard (eds), Cooperation and Conflict in Southern Africa: Papers on a Regional Subsystem (Washington DC: University Press of America, 1976) pp. 419–20.
See: A. R. Newby-Fraser, Chain Reaction: Twenty Years of Nuclear Research and Development in South Africa (Pretoria: Atomic Energy Board, 1979) pp. 92–4; Spence, ‘The Republic of South Africa’, pp. 215–16.
P. Boskma, ‘Jet Nozzle and Vortex Tube Enrichment Technologies’, in Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation (London: Taylor & Francis, 1979) pp. 66–7;
Aldo Cassuto, ‘Can Uranium Enrichment Enrich South Africa?’, The World Today, 26 (1970) 419–27.
K. Subrahmanyam, ‘The Nuclear Issue and International Security’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 33 (February 1977) 17–18; Kapur, International Nuclear Proliferation, p. 254.
Die Beeld, 26 July 1980, quoted in Zdenek Červenka and Barbara Rogers, The Nuclear Axis: Secret Collaboration between West Germany and South Africa (London: Julian Friedmann, 1978) p. 222.
Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb? South Africa’s Nuclear Potential’, p. 302. See also: Richard E. Bissell, South Africa and the United States: The Erosion of an Influence Relationship (New York: Praeger, 1982) pp. 110, 119n;
J. E. Spence, International Problems of Nuclear Proliferation and the South African Position, SAIIA Occasional Paper (Braamfontein: South African Institute of International Affairs, 1980) p. 9. It will be recalled that, soon after the 1977 Kalahari test incident, Prime Minister Vorster called a general election and won a massive vote of confidence from the white electorate (see Chapter 6).
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World Armaments and Disarmament, SIPRI Yearbook 1979 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1979) p. 321;
International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey 1977 (London: IISS, 1978) p. 111;
Thomas L. Neff and Henry D. Jacoby, ‘Nonproliferation Strategy in a Changing Nuclear Fuel Market’, Foreign Affairs, 57 (1979) 1136; The Economist, 25 February 1977.
Robert I. Rotberg and Norma Kriger, ‘Uranium and the Nuclear Industry’, in Robert I. Rotberg, Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern Africa (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980) pp. 156–7; Africa Confidential, 8 July 1977.
See Chapter 5, and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World Armaments and Disarmament, SIPRI Yearbook 1976 (London: The MIT Press, 1976) pp. 389–90; Mugomba, ‘The Militarization of the Indian Ocean and the Liberation of Southern Africa’, p. 278n; Africa Confidential, 4 Augustl 1978; The Economist, 6 December 1975, p. 75.
Sverre Lodgaard, ‘Prospects for Non-proliferation’, Survival, 22 (1980) 166.
Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb for South Africa?’, p. 103; Warren H. Donnelly and William N. Raiford, US Foreign Policy Toward South Africa: The Case of Nuclear Cooperation, Congressional Research Service Report no. 82–24S-F (Washington DC: The Library of Congress, 1981) p. 7; Crocker, South Africa’s Defense Posture, p. 58.
Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb? South Africa’s Nuclear Potential’, pp. 291, 300; Donnelly and Raiford, US Foreign Policy Toward South Africa, p. 27; Bissell, South Africa and the United States, pp. 104, 110; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World Armaments and Disarmament, SIPRI Yearbook 1978 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1978) p. 73; Crocker, South Africa’s Defense Posture, pp. 59, 67; Jaster, ‘Politics and the “Afrikaner Bomb”’, p. 844.
Spence, ‘Nuclear Weapons and South Africa’, pp.413, 420–1; Kapur, International Nuclear Proliferation, p. 122; Betts, ‘A Diplomatic Bomb? South Africa’s Nuclear Potential’, pp. 302–3, 305; Bissell, South Africa and the United States, pp. 104–5; Robert E. Harkavy, ‘Pariah Statesand Nuclear Proliferation’, International Organization, 35 (1981) 155.
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© 1987 J. D. L. Moore
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Moore, J.D.L. (1987). South Africa’s Nuclear Intentions. In: South Africa and Nuclear Proliferation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07828-8_8
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