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Southern Africa: Détente?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

In a speech to the South African Senate on 23 October Prime Minister Vorster declared that the situation in Southern Africa had reached a point at which a choice had to be made between peaceful negotiation on the one hand, or escalating strife on the other. He offered Africa ‘the way of peace’. Within three days President Kaunda responded favourably. In a graduation day speech at the University of Zambia, he described Vorster's overture as ‘the voice of reason for which Africa and the world have been waiting for many years’. Without hesitation policy-makers and the press in South Africa fastened upon the term détente, hoisted it from another context, and applied it to describe both the atmosphere and substance of ensuing interstate relations in Southern Africa.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 107 note 1 For a useful background to the early period of negotiation, see Barratt, John, ‘Detente in Southern Africa’, in The World Today (London), 31, 3, 03 1975, pp. 120130;Google Scholar and von der Ropp, Klaus, ‘The New Interplay of Forces in Southern Africa’, in Aussen Politik (Hamburg), XXVI, I, 1975, pp. 6077.Google Scholar

page 108 note 1 Elliott, Florence, A Dictionary of Politics (Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 127.Google Scholar

page 108 note 2 Clemens, Walter C. Jr, ‘The Impact of Detente on Chinese and Soviet Communism’, in Journal of International Affairs (New York), XXVIII, 2, 1974, p. 134.Google Scholar

page 109 note 1 Kissinger, Henry A., The Imperative of Co-existence. A Statement by the U.S. Secretary of State before the Foreign Relations Committee, 19, 1974 (Washington, 1974), pp. 3 and 78.Google Scholar

page 109 note 2 Shulman, Marshall D., ‘Toward a Western Philosophy of Coexistence’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), 52, I, 1973 pp. 35–6.Google Scholar

page 109 note 3 Stephen S. Rosenfeld, ‘Pluralism and Policy’, ibid. 52, 2, january 1974, p. 264.

page 110 note 1 Kissinger, op. cit. p. 10.

page 110 note 2 Safran, Nadav, ‘Engagement in the Middle East’, in Foreign Affairs, 52, I, 10 1974, pp. 4563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 111 note 1 Raymond Vernon, ‘Apparatchiks and Entrepreneurs: US—Soviet economic relations’, ibid. 52, 2, January 1974, p. 262.

page 111 note 2 Kissinger, Henry A., ‘The Challenge of Peace’, in Bulletin. The Department of State (Washington), LXXII, 875, 2 06 1975, p. 710.Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 See William P. Bundy's plea for the acceptance of complexity in foreign policy as a fact of life — ‘International Security Today’, in Foreign Affairs, 53, I, 10 1974, p. 24 in particular; also Shulman, loc. cit. p. 36.

page 112 note 2 Clemens, loc. cit.

page 113 note 1 See Bowman, Larry, ‘The Subordinate State System of Southern Africa’, in International Studies Quarterly (Beverly Hills), XII, 3, 09 1968, pp. 231–61;Google Scholar and Potholm, Christian P., ‘Toward the Millennium’, in Potholm, Christian P. and Dale, Richard (eds.), Southern Africa in Perspective: essays in regional politics (New York, 1972), pp. 321–31.Google Scholar

page 114 note 1 Interview with Uwechue, Raph in Africa (London), 42, 02 1975, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 See Chambati, Ariston, ‘South Africa's View of Rhodesia’, in Newsletter. South African Institute of International Affairs (Johannesburg), VII, I, 03 1975, pp. 1219.Google Scholar

page 117 note 1 See Windrich, Elaine, ‘Rhodesia: the challenge to detente’, in The World Today, 31, 8, 09 1975, pp. 358–67.Google Scholar

page 119 note 1 See, for example, Hirschmann, David, ‘Pressures on Apartheid’, in Foreign Affairs, 52, I, 10 1973, pp. 168–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 119 note 2 See, for example, Shaw, Timothy M., ‘Southern Africa: co-operation and conflict in an international sub-system’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), XII, 4, 12 1974, pp. 633–55.Google Scholar

page 119 note 3 See Çervenka, Zdenek (ed.), Land-Locked Countries of Africa (Uppsala, 1974).Google Scholar The six in Southern Africa are Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia, and Rhodesia.

page 121 note 1 Barratt, loc. cit. p. 124.

page 122 note 1 Cantori, Louis J. and Spiegel, Steven L., The International Politics of Regions: a comparative approach (Englewood Cliffs, 1970).Google Scholar The authors distinguish equilibrium from a stalemate, where ‘one or both sides would change conditions if they could and are seeking means of doing so’, pp. 18–19.

page 124 note 1 See the Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), 15 march 1975, p. 9, for Vorster's interview with Gbolabo Ogunsanwo.