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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84S00552R000100120003-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: January 12, 2017
• Document Release Date: July 5, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 1, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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,a ,~
Intelligence
l~J
South Africa Confronts
Its Neighbors: The
Coercive Use of Power
Seem4
ALA 83-10038X
March 1983
33
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Directorate of Secret
Intelligence
South Africa Confronts
Its Neighbors: The
Coercive Use of Power
This paper was prepared by Office of
African and Latin American Ana ysis. Comments and
queries are welcome and may be addressed to the
Chief, Southern Africa Division, ALA
Operations and the National Intelligence Council
Secret
ALA 83-10038X
March 1983
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South Africa Confronts
Its Neighbors: The
Coercive Use of Power
Key Judgments Since 1975, and particularly since Prime Minister Botha came to power in
information available 1978, South Africa's past emphasis on peaceful coexistence and economic
as of 9 February 1983 cooperation with its neighbors has given way to a more pronounced reliance
was used in this report.
on the coercive use of its power advantages over nearby black regimes. The
new look in Pretoria's regional policy has been marked not only by
aggressive military operations against South African insurgent groups-
primarily the African National Congress (ANC) and the South-West
Africa People's Organization (SWAPO)-but also by efforts to keep these
groups' main sponsors, Angola and Mozambique, weak and distracted
through the expansion of South Africa's support for insurgent movements
in both these countries. Pretoria's support for insurgent attacks on
infrastructure targets in neighboring countries also helps preserve its
economic leverage over black governments-leverage that the South
Africans use on the political level to force these governments to behave in a
less openly hostile manner.
A number of factors have contributed to the more hawkish South African
approach to regional affairs. They include the replacement of relatively
benign, white-controlled governments in neighboring states by Communist-
supported black regimes, the institutionalization in the South African-
decisionmaking system of a hardline, military point of view, and the
further development of a "siege mentality" within South Africa's white
community.
Neither Communist nor Western reactions to South Africa's aggressive
dealings toward its neighbors have dissuaded Pretoria from a policy that it
believes has successfully served its immediate security concerns:
? US representations may have caused Pretoria to cancel some military
operations into southern Angola and temporarily to stop tightening the
economic screws on Zimbabwe. But the overall record of South African
actions is evidence that Western pressure has had little enduring or
fundamental effect.
? The expansion of Communist involvement in the region that has occurred
since 1975-as Moscow and its allies exploited black African jitters
about South African intentions-has also had little visible deterrent
effect. To the contrary, South African officials regularly point to such
developments as Soviet arms sales to Zambia and the growing Soviet and
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ALA 83-10038X
March 1983
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Cuban presence in Angola and Mozambique as evidence of the hostile
intentions of neighboring black regimes and of the need for preemptive
action by Pretoria.
As a result, we anticipate that Pretoria will continue to emphasize coercion
in its dealings with its neighbors. Developments in Mozambique, where any
further expansion of the activities of the South African-backed National
Resistance Movement (NRM) could either bring President Machel down
or force him to call for Cuban combat troops, will test the limits of South
African boldness. Either eventuality would have major consequences for
South Africa, forcing it in the first instance to divert massive resources to
prop up a group in Maputo that would be woefully unprepared to rule and
in the second instance to divert military resources from the Namibian
front.
Pretoria may stop short of trying to overthrow neighboring black govern-
ments in the face of practical realities such as those in Mozambique. Even
so, continued South African aggressiveness along the lines we anticipate
will, in our view, continue to complicate US policy toward southern Africa:
? We believe, for example, that South Africa's support for the National
Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), coupled with its
hard line on the Cuban withdrawal issue, will continue to block an
internationally sanctioned Namibian settlement even as the South Afri-
can military presence in southern Angola whets Luanda's interest in such
a settlement.
? In the absence of a Namibian peace settlement, and, in the face of
continued military pressure from internal dissidents, black leaders
throughout the region will remain receptive to Soviet Bloc offers of
military and political backing.
? Continued South African assertiveness will also act as a drag on US
relations with individual black governments and with black Africa as a
whole. Most black leaders exaggerate the degree of leverage the United
States has over South Africa and will blame Washington for failing to
rein in Pretoria.
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Ultimately, of course, the South Africans' unbridled use of their power
could create a situation they would not be able to control. The relative suc-
cess of their tough policies may in fact be blinding them to the limits of
their power and to the capabilities of the USSR to respond on behalf of the
targeted black regimes.
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South Africa's Regional Priorities
Attacking Anti-South African Insurgents
3
Creating Instability and Maintaining Dependence
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South Africa and Its Neighbors
Burundi
Buiumbur ~( soya
Boundary representation is
not neceaearily authoritative.
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South Africa Confronts
Its Neighbors: The
Coercive Use of Power
Underlying Pretoria's foreign policies, in our view, is
the same fundamental objective that dominates its
domestic policies: the maintenance of white rule in
South Africa. Any conceivable threat to white rule
from black Africa was remote, however, until develop-
ments between 1975 and 1980 made Pretoria's neigh-
borhood a far more dangerous and hostile place. This
five-year period saw. the replacement of friendly,
white-controlled governments in key neighboring
states by leftist black regimes, a dramatic growth of
the Communist presence in the region, and a surge of
black civil unrest and insurgent activities inside South
Africa. This created the specter of what South Afri-
ca's white minority fears most-a combination of
internal revolt and external attack. both Communist
backed.
Despite its involvement in the Angolan civil war, its
occasional operations against insurgents of the South-
West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in
southern Angola and southwestern Zambia, and its
military support for Rhodesia, Pretoria during this
traumatic half decade of change continued to pursue
a policy toward its black neighbors that emphasized
cooperation, coexistence, and economic interdepend-
ence. By 1980, however, there were signs that the new
realities of Pretoria's immediate world were causing
South Africans to rethink their approach to regional
dealings. It is now clear that Prime Minister P. W.
Botha's advent to power midway through the period
ushered in a set of new regional policies. This paper
attempts to explain these changes, how they came
about, and what we might expect in the future.
In April 1979, less than a year after taking office,
Botha unveiled his "constellation of states" scheme as
the centerpiece of South Africa's regional policies.
The proposal was an elaboration of some regional
policy themes-labeled rapprochement and detente-
that had been periodically promoted by both of his
immediate predecessors, B. J. Vorster and H. F.
Verwoerd. As presented by Botha and other senior
spokesmen, the constellation policy envisioned the
emergence of a regional detente in southern Africa
built on a complex web of economic cooperation and
political and security understandings between South
Africa and its neighbors. The constellation proposal
was accompanied by a much ballyhooed conference of
senior government and business leaders-held in
November 1979 in Johannesburg-at which the
Prime Minister called on white businesses to expand
regional trade, increase investments in neighboring
states, and take other steps to promote regional
economic integration.
Black states in the region almost immediately rejected
any political and security involvement with South
Africa and took steps to form their own economic-
oriented countergrouping. Finance Ministers of Ango-
la, Botswana, Mozambique, and Tanzania, and Zam-
bia's Minister of Transportation met in July 1979 to
review proposals for regional cooperation aimed at
reducing South Africa's economic dominance in the
region. This meeting led to the establishment of the
nine-member Southern African Development Coordi-
nation Conference (SADCC) in April 1980, by which
time few leaders in the region took Pretoria's constel-
lation notion seriously.
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The failure of Pretoria's constellation scheme was
accompanied by an even more disturbing development
in neighboring Zimbabwe: the election victory of 25X1
avowedly Marxist and vehemently antiapartheid
Robert Mugabe. The transformation of white-ruled
Rhodesia into black-controlled Zimbabwe would have
had a significant enough impact on South Africa had
Ian Smith's black ally, Abel Muzorewa, won at the
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polls. But the unexpected landslide victory by Mu-
gabe-whom Pretoria had labeled a "Marxist terror-
ist"-was a profound shock to South Africa, bringing
home to whites of all walks of life the depth of their
own historical predicament and hardening their out-
look on external and internal policy issues.
At the decisionmaking level in Pretoria, Mugabe's
victory accelerated what had been a fairly gradual
shift of influence away from a relatively moderate
viewpoint toward a more hawkish outlook. This trend
had begun fairly early in Botha's administration as
military careerists, whose loyalty Botha had gained
during his 15 years as Defense Minister, moved into
key positions in the decisionmaking structure, and as
Botha remodeled the structure itself to increase his
control over it.'
We lack precise information on how specific policy
positions have been hammered out.
po icy
debates increasingly vie as the Botha
administration settled in. On major regional policy
issues, in particular, the military newcomers tended to
push positions founded on a no-nonsense policy out-
look in which short-term security concerns predomi-
nate and that stress direct and bold use of South
Africa's economic and military advantages over its
neighbors.
These hardline positions often clashed with those
taken by members of the traditional foreign policy
establishment represented by National Party politi-
cians and careerists from the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Information (DFAI). The politicians and
DFAI officials for the most part tended to take a
longer view of regional developments and favored a
more cautious exploitation of the country's regional
power advantages by exercising the conventional for-
eign policy tools of diplomacy and economic assist-
ance. Prime Minister Botha apparently swung to one
side or the other in the running debate, depending on
the issue, but he leaned increasingly toward hardline
positions as he gained confidence in the foreign policy
realm.
Mugabe's election victory in February 1980 seriously
weakened the position of the moderates in Pretoria-
particularly the DFAI careerists-who had already
suffered a setback because of the failure of their
constellation policy. Along with the civilian National
Intelligence Service (NIS), the careerists had stuck to
their prediction of a Muzorewa victory to the end.
This reversal did not lead to political scapegoating or
cabinet resignations such as might have occurred in
Western governments under similar circumstances:
Afrikaner traditions of strength and unity in the face
of adversity militate against such displays of disarray.
The general thrust of policy after mid-1980 and the
tenor of reports on policy debates make it clear,
however, that Foreign Minister Roelof Botha and
other moderates-recognizing that the momentum
had swung in favor of the hardliners, sensing toughen-
ing of white attitudes, and questioning the validity of
their own past assumptions about the possibilities of
living in peace with black Marxist regimes-accom-
modated themselves increasingly to the hardline view-
point
The view that came to dominate in Pretoria after mid-
1980 was encapsulated recently by a South African
policy adviser, who said that nearby black regimes
had to support anti-South African insurgent organi-
zations if only to maintain their credibility as African
leaders. The adviser, whose views the US Embassy
believes reflect the thinking of senior officials, assert-
ed that conflict between South Africa and its neigh-
bors is inevitable. Other officials have gone further by
suggesting that efforts by Pretoria to encourage re-
gional stability and to obtain its neighbors' good will
and cooperation through economic inducements only
risks strengthening fundamentally hostile regimes.
Logic of this sort plainly underlies South Africa's
shift toward a more pronounced reliance on coercive
means of influence over its neighbors.
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We doubt that South Africa proceeds within the
region from any grand strategy and believe instead
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that leaders in Pretoria react to events and seize
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opportunities as they present themselves. Neverthe-
less, under Botha's administration decisions on deal-
ings with individual black states appear to be made
within a framework of general objectives and priori-
tied
Attacking Anti-South African Insurgents
A principal and immediate concern of South Africa in
its dealings with its neighbors is the extent to which
they provide support to anti-South African insur-
gents. Pretoria's chief target is the African National
Congress (ANC), which has been particularly active
since the suppression of the Soweto riots of 1976 when
its ranks were swelled by black youth emigrating from
South Africa to neighboring black states. Since that
time, our records indicate the ANC has been responsi-
ble for several hundred terrorist incidents inside
South Africa. Most of these incidents have been
minor, but they have included a daring hostage-taking
incident at a suburban Pretoria bank in early 1980,
sabotage of the SASOL synthetic fuel plants later
that year, and the bombing last December of the
Koeberg nuclear power plant outside of Cape Town.
These incidents aroused white fears and heightened
government concern about the ANC and its external
sanctuaries. Repeated public warnings by South Afri-
can political and military leaders that Pretoria would
employ a "forward defense" strategy, that is, it would
strike against terrorist bases wherever they are found,
have been carried out. The most notable examples
have been an attack in June 1980 on ANC safehouses
in Swaziland, the raid in January 1981 on ANC
facilities in the Maputo area, and the operation last
December against ANC personnel in Maseru, Leso-
tho.
South Africa's anxieties about its black majority are
so severe, in our judgment, that no independent black
African state can escape Pretoria's suspicion that it is
actively supporting the ANC.
we believe that only relatively distant An-
gola permits the ANC to operate freely. Although
Mozambique serves an an important transit route for
ANC guerrillas, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Le-
sotho, and Swaziland restrict the ANC to political
activity. The ANC, however, often succeeds in cir-
cumventing these restrictions, and this fuels South
African suspicions that these states are turning a
blind eye to the group or are not doing everything
possible to control its activities
As the leadership in Pretoria has surveyed the results
of its "forward defense" against ANC insurgents, it
has probably become increasingly convinced that it is
on the right course. Despite occasional incidents of
ANC sabotage, the campaign against ANC targets
has prevented any major escalation of ANC violence
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"Forward defense"-taking the war to the insurgents'
sanctuaries-has also become South Africa's primary
way of dealing with SWAPO. Even before Pretoria's 25X1
shift of emphasis from carrots to sticks in its regional
dealings, the South African Defense Force (SADF) in
the late 1970s conducted raids against SWAPO tar-
-gets in southwestern Zambia, but generally in re-
sponse to specific insurgent actions such as the
SWAPO attack on Katima Mulilo in August 1978.
Zambian President Kaunda responded by restricting
SWAPO's use of Zambian territory. By 1980
SWAPO had moved its principal bases of operation to
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As Angola became the major home base for SWAPO
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the SADF increased its perma- 25X1
nent troop strength in northern Namibia from 8,500
in 1978 to about 15,000 in 1981.2 With the exception
of a few spectacular deep penetration attacks into
Angola, however, Pretoria's initial efforts against
SWAPO were confined to skirmishes along the bor-
ders and to limited, hot pursuit raids. In June 1980
7 We estimate that the SADF now maintains a force of 22,000 to
25,000 men in Namibia
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the SADF launched its first extended search-and-
destroy operation against SWAPO. A subsequent
military incursion into Angola in mid-1981-Opera-
tion Protea-was the largest and most ambitious such
undertaking since Pretoria's intervention during the
Angolan civil war in 1975. It included airstrikes
against Cuban-manned radar installations in southern
Angola and devastating attacks by South African
ground forces against Angolan military units and, in
our opinion, was intended to deter Angolan and
Cuban support for SWAPO in the frontier area. Since
that time, Pretoria has created and maintained con-
trol of a buffer zone in southern Angola and has
carried out several major incursions in reaction to
Angolan and SWAPO actions
South Africa's aggressive military strategy has kept
the SWAPO insurgency sputtering. SADF incursions
into southern Angola have taken a heavy toll on
insurgent ranks, and the buffer zone north of the
border has seriously hampered guerrilla infiltration.
Moreover, the punishment Angolan forces have taken
at the hands of the SADF has created strains between
SWAPO and Angolan leaders. Under these condi-
tions, local counterinsurgency forces inside Namibia
have had a fairly easy time in confining the insurgen-
cy to the border region-especially Ovamboland,
SWAPO's ethnic homeland; the few guerrilla bands
that have been able to penetrate into the economically
vital white-controlled areas have been quickly
crushed.
Creating Instability and
Maintaining Dependence
Pretoria's growing skepticism about the possibilities of
peaceful coexistence with neighboring black states, we
believe, has led it to adopt a second major regional
priority: keeping its neighbors-particularly those it
regards as most hostile-weak and dependent. This is
evident in the pattern of South African involvement in
regional insurgencies, its ready use of its economic
and transportation leverage,
prevent the rival Popular Movement for the Libera-
tioh of Angola (MPLA) from assuming power at
independence in 1975. The extent of South Africa's
support has been difficult to assess
we believe it has included
medicines, helicopter evacuation of wounded, finan-
cial credits, arms and ammunition, military training,
communications assistance, trucks and fuel,
With South African support, UNITA in recent
months has expanded the area and the intensity of its
operations. In addition, it has kept the Benguela
railroad virtually closed since 1975. This has served
South Africa's regional objectives by keeping land-
locked Zambia and Zaire dependent on South African
transportation facilities.'
In Mozambique, which Pretoria probably regards as
its second most hostile neighbor, the South Africans
have gradually expanded their backing for the Na-
tional Resistance Movement (NRM) since taking over
sponsorship of the guerrillas from the Rhodesians in
early 1980.
' While South Africa derives only limited benefits from its econom-
ic ties to black Africa, these ties are critically important to its
neighbors. In addition to Pretoria's near stranglehold on the
region's transportation network, neighboring states depend on
In Angola, which South Africa regards as its most
hostile neighbor, Pretoria has been providing support
to the insurgency of Jonas Savimbi's National Union
for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) since
the two joined forces in an unsuccessful attempt to
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NRM attacks on economic targets in Mozambique
have an important side effect in maintaining Zimba-
bwe's dependence on South African transportation
links. The NRM has regularly sabotaged the fuel
pipeline connecting Zimbabwe to the Mozambican
port of Beira-the only alternative to using South
African transportation facilities to ship oil to Zimba-
bwe. NRM attacks have also closed or disrupted.rail
lines connecting Zimbabwe directly with ports in
Mozambique
In addition to these interruptions of Zimbabwe's non-
South African links to the outside world, evidence is
accumulating that the country has become the third
principal target-after Angola and Mozambique-of
Pretoria's overall regional strategy of fostering tur-
moil and instability.
Compared with Pretoria's support for UNITA and
NRM operations, South African efforts to fan inter-
nal dissidence in Zimbabwe is a sideshow, but it has
added significantly to the worries of the Mugabe
government. The frictions that have emerged between
Mugabe's ruling Shona tribe and Joshua Nkomo's
Ndebeles as well as between the country's blacks and
whites are rooted in history and would have increased
on their own accord.
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Forcing Respect
A peripheral but still important factor at work in
Pretoria is its concern that neighboring black regimes
deal with South Africa more "normally" or at least in
a less openly hostile manner in the public realm.
Although South African DFAI officials acknowledge
that black African states must indulge in anti-South
African rhetoric, if only for domestic political reasons,
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most white South Africans, including several cabinet
members, appear sensitive to verbal and diplomatic
slights from neighboring countries. Senior officials
frequently complain publicly, as well as in private
conversations with US officials, that South Africa's
neighbors do not give Pretoria respect commensurate
with its position in the region. South African leaders
were visibly irritated, for. example, when Zimbabwe
did not invite Pretoria to send a delegation to attend
independence ceremonies when Mugabe took power.
Since then, anti-South African rhetoric from Harare
has been the source of considerable tension between
the two countries.
Pretoria's desire for what amounts to tacit diplomatic
relations with its neighbors appears to have become
stronger even as it has acted in ways that have
increased tensions with those neighbors. It tried, for
example, to exploit Zimbabwe's fuel shortage this
January, which South Africa had a hand in creating,
to force Harare to negotiate at the ministerial level
over a long-term fuel supply contract. Moreover,
recent top-level meetings between South African offi-
cials and their Angolan and Mozambican counter-
parts have been widely publicized in South Africa,
and Foreign Minister Botha. in an interview in late
1982 made plain his satisfaction that Luanda and
Maputo had begun to deal more "normally" with
Pretoria
As the leadership in Pretoria surveys the results of its
shift toward a more assertive regional policy, we
believe that it sees few disincentives to staying the
course. Domestically, the current approach is playing
well. A recent poll showed that 80 percent of the
white population supports military strikes into coun-
tries harboring anti-South African insurgents; most
whites even said they would support government food
embargoes against such countries. Since early 1983
the Botha administration has been grilled by the
English-speaking political parties and newspapers
over public revelations on the extent of South Africa's
involvement with the NRM. This sort of political heat
is almost certainly preferable to Botha than the more
politically damaging criticism he would face if right-
wing parties in the ruling Afrikaner community
thought he was not doing enough to combat anti-
South African insurgents.
International pressure on South Africa to modify its
coercive activities in the region have, in our view, had
some effect in Pretoria. South Africa over the years
has become inured to censure from the United Na-
tions and Third World states and shrugs off condem-
nations of the sort it received following the raids on
Matola and Maseru. Pressure from specific Western
governments is another matter, however. We believe
that official US representations have caused Pretoria
to cancel some plans for military operations in Angola
and temporarily to stop tightening the economic
screws on Zimbabwe in late 1981. Nevertheless, the
overall record of South African actions suggests to us
that Western pressure has had little enduring or
fundamental effect to date in softening South Africa's
policy toward its neighbors.
The expansion of Communist involvement in the
region that has occurred as Moscow and Havana have
exploited black African jitters about South Africa's
intentions has also had little visible deterrent effect so
far on Pretoria.' To the contrary, South African
officials regularly point to such developments as the
USSR's sizable arms sales to Zambia and the grow-
ing Soviet and Cuban presence in Mozambique and
Angola as evidence of the hostile intentions of neigh-
boring regimes and of the need for preemptive action
on Pretoria's part. Western warnings that South
5 The Soviets over the past five years have concluded several new
arms sales agreements in the region-most notably a $200 million
accord with Zambia in 1979 and a $7 million pact with Botswana
in 1980. Moscow and Havana also have significantly expanded
their military relationships with Angola and Mozambique during
this period. In Angola, the Soviets have replaced all the materiel
the South Africans captured and destroyed in Operation Protea,
and, since early 1981, they have been introducing some new and
more sophisticated equipment. The number of Cuban military
personnel in Angola rose from 15,000 to 20,000 in 1980 to 25,000
to 30,000 by early 1983. Cuban involvement in counterinsurgency
operations against UNITA has increased significantly since early
1982. The Soviets and Cubans have gradually increased their
advisory assistance to the Mozambicans as the NRM insurgency
has heated up. Moreover, Soviet ships have made several deliveries
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Pretoria's behavior in the southern African region, in
our view, is influenced by broader attitudes toward
black Africa, the West, and the Soviet Union, which
are widely shared by white South Africans of all
walks of life and, which form the common basis for
much of the official and unofficial commentary on
foreign affairs.
"Black Africa Is Dying"
South Africans maintain that European colonial rule
ended too soon, leaving black Africans incapable of
dealing with the political and economic challenges of
the 20th century. Insisting that racism does not
underlie their belief that black Africans are "imma-
ture, "South Africans argue that "Africa is dying"
without the civilizing influence of white rule, and that
independent black African states have become impov-
erished and chaotic "Marxist" states that are easy
prey for Communist adventurers.
South Africa's seeming obsession with events in
Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980 reflects
these attitudes; indeed, almost every instance of what
whites perceive as decay in "civilized" standards is
carefully chronicled in the South African press.
Thus, any successful black African state would chal-
lenge the fundamental precept of white rulers in
South Africa that "uncivilized" black Africans need
the guiding hand of whites in order to survive in the
modern world. Pretoria probably would view the
existence of any stable and prosperous black-ruled
state on its border as an incentive for rebellion among
South African blacks
Ambivalence Toward the West
Despite their growing international isolation since the
Afrikaners came to power in 1948, white South
Africans tend to identify with the West. They empha-
size their World War II contributions and their
continuing role as guardians of the important Cape
sea route and as suppliers of strategic minerals.
South African whites see particular parallels between
their country and the United States and take pride in
them. This is coupled to a sense of betrayal, however,
that gives the relationship a "love-hate" aspect.
Many whites resent Western opposition to apartheid
and believe that Pretoria's role as an outpost for
Western, Christian, and democratic values is under-
valued. Numerous white leaders have repeatedly and
strongly expressed their belief that they were aban-
doned by the United States when it did not support
South Africa's intervention in the Angolan civil war;
a common theme in South Africa's official defense of 25X1
its policies is that Western governments have no right I
to infringe on Pretoria's freedom of action in domes-
tic and regional- affairs.
Soviet Demonology
South African leaders identify the Soviet Union as
the country's principal adversary. They see Moscow
as taking advantage of every opportunity from
backing anti-South African insurgents to arming
hostile governments on its border-to strike at South
Africa. By derivation, Pretoria argues, the Soviets
are attacking the West-for whom continued South 25X1
African dominance of the region is described as
"vital. "
The leadership in Pretoria also plays up the "Soviet
menace" to make common cause with the West and
to deflect Western attention from the apartheid issue.
In addition, publicity for the Soviet threat is useful
for domestic political purposes. To meet the com-
bined threat of domestic opposition, foreign-based
"terrorists, " and Soviet expansionism, South African
leaders have elevated security concerns above all
others in domestic propaganda. The "total on-
slaught" theme was given heavy play last year when
the government made military service compulsory for 25X1
all white males up to age 55. Domestic critics of the
government's racial policies are often discredited with
the charge that they are doing Moscow's bidding.
Nonetheless, white leaders are undoubtedly aware of
the risks of overplaying this hand. While worried over
the danger to South Africa from an expanded Soviet
presence along its borders, Pretoria is probably also
concerned that increased Soviet activity in the region
might trigger a Western response that could work to
the detriment of South Africa's freedom of action in
the region
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Africa's heavyhandedness toward its neighbors serves
to fuel a deepening cycle of action and reaction that
plays to the advantage of Moscow and Havana ap-
pears to have had little impact.
We anticipate that South Africa will continue to
expect the worst from its black neighbors and to
pursue policies toward them that emphasize coercion
over conciliation. The gradual shift in Pretoria's
regional outlook and approach that has occurred since
1975 is rooted in fundamental changes that have
occurred in recent years. These include the advent to
power of Communist-backed black regimes along
South Africa's periphery, the institutionalization of a
hardline, military point of view in the South African-
decisionmaking apparatus, and the development of a
"survival state" mentality within the country's white
population.
As a result, we believe Pretoria will maintain military
pressure on the ANC and SWAPO while keeping the
main sponsors of these groups weak and distracted by
supporting such groups as UNITA and the NRM. We
also expect South Africa to continue mounting covert
operations against Zimbabwe and to use its leverage
aggressively in a variety of ways to maintain its
economic dominance of the region and induce less
hostile political behavior by its black neighbors
Pretoria's dealings with individual black states may
even become more aggressive in the future depending
on circumstances. The situation in Mozambique may,
in fact, provide an early test of the limits of South
African boldness. When Pretoria took over sponsor-
ship of the NRM from the Ian Smith government in
1980, it appeared to do so with fairly limited objec-
tives in mind: providing a bargaining chip against
Mozambican support for the ANC, disrupting Zim-
babwe's transportation routes through Mozambique,
and keeping the Machel government enfeebled.
Thanks in part to extensive South African support,
however, NRM operations over the past year have
gained momentum to the point where any further
expansion of the insurgency threatens either to bring
Machel down or force him to call in Cuban combat
troops to save his regime
Either development would have major consequences
for South Africa. Despite their private assertions to
US officials that the arrival of Cuban combat troops
would trigger large-scale South African attacks on
Mozambique, the prospect of being drawn into an
escalating cycle of clashes along South Africa's east-
ern borders must be daunting to even the most
confident military planners in Pretoria. Almost a
fourth of the 100,000-man SADF is already tied down
on the Namibia front, and an effort to sustain large-
scale operations along the Mozambican border would
stretch the SADF's logistics and air capabilities dan-
gerously thin and limit the military's capabilities to
respond to any internal "emergency."
would be faced with the expensive and dubious pros-
pect of underwriting a group whose ability to attract
popular support
is doubted
and that appears to us to be in numerous other ways
woefully unprepared to rule without massive South
African assistance. Strategy papers endorsed by the
top-level State Security Council in late 1981 listed as
long-term goals the overthrow of hostile neighboring
regimes and their replacement by friendly govern-
ments. We are not convinced, however, that Pretoria
would push such goals when faced with practical
considerations such as those that currently exist in
Mozambique.
Even if South Africa puts on the brakes in Mozam-
bique and stops short of trying to replace black
regimes elsewhere, the current climate in Pretoria
could give rise to another sort of adventurism. We do
not subscribe to the view that South Africa's military
has a free hand on national security issues and has
become a "rogue elephant" on regional issues. Mili-
tary men do, however, have Botha's ear and have
displayed a readiness to use coercion. They are,
moreover, in positions to pick and choose how to
implement military-related policy decisions and have
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been buoyed by the success to date of their hardline
approach. Under these conditions, individual military
officers or commands may be tempted to stretch the
limits of their orders and engage in unauthorized
activities such as we suspect occurred in the case of
the coup attempt in the Seychelles in 1981 and in
some of the more recent cross-border operations into
Zimbabwe.
Persistent South African aggressiveness toward
neighboring states along the lines we anticipate will,
in our view, continue to complicate US policy toward
the region. It will undercut US efforts to encourage
the Marxist regimes in Angola and Mozambique to
lessen their dependence on the Soviet Bloc and to
pursue less radical domestic and foreign policies. We
believe, for example, that South Africa's support to
UNITA coupled with its hard line on the Cuban
withdrawal issue will continue to block an internation-
ally sanctioned Namibian settlement even as the
South African military presence in southern Angola
whets Luanda's interest in such a settlement. In the
absence of a peace settlement and in the face of
continued direct and indirect military pressure from
South African-backed dissidents, black leaders in
Maputo and Luanda will continue to place a premium
on the military and political backing they receive
from Moscow and its allies.
We believe, moreover, that coercive South African
policies toward Zimbabwe and other relatively pro-
Western black governments may yet cause the leaders
of these countries to turn away from the comparative-
ly moderate internal and external policies they have
been pursuing. Heavyhanded South African actions
and the economic problems they have helped create
have already caused these leaders to turn to the
West-particularly the United States-for more eco-
nomic assistance, for greater involvement in schemes
for easing their dependence on South Africa, and for
help in reining in Pretoria. Most black leaders have an
exaggerated notion of US economic might and the
degree of leverage Washington has over Pretoria and
may become increasingly tempted to use the United
There are growing parallels between the security
role of the United States in South and Central
America and that of South Africa in this part of
the world. The correspondence arises from similar
motives: the promotion of stability and strengthen-
ing of democratic forces against Communist sub-
version, and it is being reinforced by the commit-
ment of the United States itself to these goals for
southern Africa.
From that joint commitment is emerging a Monroe
Doctrine for the region. It is taking shape as new
developments lead to a more comprehensive enun-
ciation of the strategy for regional security. As the
most advanced and powerful state in the region,
South Africa has a special responsibility toward it,
as the United States has long had toward its own
continent.
Ultimately, the South Africans could, through unbri-
dled use of their power, create a situation they would
not be able to control. In our view, the relative success
the South Africans have had thus far with their tough
approach to regional affairs may in fact be blinding
them to the limits of their power and to the USSR's
capabilities for responding on behalf of black regimes
in southern Africa. Senior military officers have in
fact frequently expressed their contempt for the
"Vietnam syndrome" that they believe had crippled
US policy by making it unwilling to use military
force. They have insisted that South Africans will not
make the same mistake.
States as a scapegoat for their problems.
Continued efforts by Pretoria to win the United
States over to its point of view and to make common
cause with Washington will make it difficult for the
United States to avoid being tarred by black Africa as
a whole. A recent editorial broadcast by the govern-
ment-owned radio network in South Africa is illustra-
tive of Pretoria's tack:
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