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Africa's Nuclear Capability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

The impact of nuclear weapons on the present and future trends in international relations continues to attract wide scholarship. While the literature on the subject has been growing apace, nuclear technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and the dangers posed to the survival of mankind are becoming much more acute than hitherto. In broad terms, the fears expressed about these weapons tend to centre around the implications of three major issues: the emergence of greater first-strike inclinations in the two super-power nuclear forces; the possibility of a perceived strategic imbalance favouring either the United States or the Soviet Union; and the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

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page 22 note 1 It should be noted that the majority of the non-nuclear states originally welcomed N.NP.T. and the associated safeguards, ensuring that they would not develop nuclear weapons, in return for aid in producing energy, and promises by the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union concerning ‘the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date’. Almost 15 years later, those promises still remain a pious hope, and the stockpiling of nuclear weapons has actually accelerated.

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page 27 note 3 In 1983, in the wake of strong anti-Libyanism in the United States, these students were expelled by the Reagan Administration.

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page 32 note 2 Ibid.

page 32 note 3 Ibid.

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page 33 note 2 Çervenka, ‘The West and the Apartheid Bomb’, p. 18.

page 33 note 3 Ibid.

page 33 note 4 Ibid.

page 33 note 5 ‘Israel Has Nuclear Stockpile’, in Sunday Star (Toronto), 16 05 1982, p. A14.Google Scholar

page 33 note 6 Africa Now, June 1983.

page 34 note 1 For instance, at the Greek international arms fair, which took place in Athens in October 1982, Armscor, South Africa's state-owned weapons company, offered ‘battle tested’ lines in most items, from high-speed armoured troop carriers to frequency-hopping field radios that defy interception. So confident was the Republic about the marketability of all its weapons that it has boldly projected annual sales of as much as $500 million within the next decade. See ‘South Africa: making weapons for export’, in Newsweek, 29 November 1982.

page 35 note 1 Betts, loc. cit. p. 92.

page 35 note 2 Spence, loc. cit. p. 442.

page 35 note 3 Çervenka, ‘The West and the Apartheid Bomb’.

page 35 note 4 ‘The Report of the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa’, Toronto, 1982, p. 3.

page 35 note 5 Schelling, loc. cit. p. 70.

page 36 note 1 Cf. for example, Time (New York), 14 11 1983, p. 56;Google ScholarThe Christian Science Monitor (Boston), 4 11 1981, pp. 1, 15, and 32; and the leader, ‘Redecorating Apartheid’, in The New York Times, 17 October 1983, p. 16.Google Scholar

page 36 note 2 de St. Jorre, John, ‘A Vote to Modernize Apartheid's Edifice’, in The New York Times, 7 November 1983.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 The Guardian (London), 8 08 1983.Google Scholar

page 36 note 4 Červenka, Zdenek, The Unfinished Quest for Unity: Africa and the OAU (New York, 1977), p. 155.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 This four-day conference on ‘The Rôle and Potential of Nuclear Energy in Nigeria’, was attended by a number of scientists from North America, Europe, and Africa.

page 38 note 1 National Concord (Lagos), 5 08 1983.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 Mazrui, op. cit. p. 135.

page 38 note 3 Ibid. p. 134.

page 38 note 4 See The Military Balance, 1983–84; and Ogunbadejo, Oye, ‘Nuclear Capability and Nigeria's Foreign Policy’, in Legum, Colin (ed.), Africa Contemporary Record, 1983–84 (London, 1984).Google Scholar

page 39 note 1 See, for example, Africa, 138, February 1983.

page 40 note 1 Ibid.

page 40 note 2 ‘Bongo's Nuclear Ultimatum to France’, in Ibid.

page 40 note 3 Ibid.

page 40 note 4 Cf. Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., ‘Why Africa's Weak States Persist: the empirical and the juridical in statehood’, in World Politics, xxxv, 1, 10 1982, pp. 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 40 note 5 For example, Mazrui proposed that Zaïre should ‘go nuclear’ in his 1979 B. B. C. Reith Lectures; The African Condition, ch. 6.

page 40 note 6 See, among others, Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., Personal Rule in Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982),Google Scholar and ‘Why Africa's Weak States Persist’ also Ogunbadejo, Oye, ‘Conflict in Africa: a case study of the Shaba crisis, 1977’, in World Affairs (Washington), 141, 3, Winter 1979, pp. 219–34.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 Mazrui, Ali A., ‘Africa's Nuclear Future’, in Survival, XXII, 2, 0304 1980, p. 78.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 Kingsley, loc. cit.

page 42 note 1 Russett, op. cit. p. 179.

page 43 note 1 According to Henry Kissinger's address to the Atlantic Alliance, given in Brussels, 13 January 1984, ‘Some 20,000 strategic warheads are in the arsenals of both sides. Even were the Soviets to accept our proposal to cut this total by half, the remaining warheads would be more than sufficient for catastrophe.’ See The Times (London), 18 01 1984, p. 10.Google ScholarCf. also Harsch, Joseph C., ‘To Reduce the Danger’, in The Christian Science Monitor, 13 December 1983, and The Military Balance, 1983–84. In addition, it has been estimated that Britain has 192 warheads at sea in Polaris submarines; that France has 80 at sea, and 18 on land; and that China has 14 on land.Google Scholar