Apartheid South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme and its impact on Southern Africa

Abstract

Apartheid South Africa‟s nuclear related activities in Southern Africa have a long history. Apart from, inter alia, the development and existence of at least six nuclear devices (which was denied for decades), South Africa operated a nuclear test site in the Kalahari Desert on the border of Botswana, utilised uranium from Southwest Africa (now independent Namibia), and employed a nuclear deterrent strategy in response to Soviet support for Angola and liberation movements in the region. This elicited responses from the so-called Frontline States (FLS) as well as the members of the Southern African Development Community (SADCC). Therefore, the purpose of this contribution is to determine the extent of South Africa‟s nuclear activities as well as its impact on the region from the mid-1970s until 1991. This period covers the period since the Portuguese regime‟s collapse in 1974 and its domino effect in Southern Africa, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Cold War.