Eroding the Middle Ground: The Shift in Foreign Policy Underpinning South African Nuclear Diplomacy

Abstract

In international relations states labelled as ‘middle powers’ are often responsible for crafting a middle way to bridge conflicting international interests. They typically favour multilateralism and cooperative international behaviour. Middle power diplomacy has played a crucial role in the establishment and maintenance of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. South Africa has played the role of a middle power in nuclear diplomacy since 1994, drawing on its moral position after giving up its nuclear weapons. This role has especially involved joining the efforts of middle powers in the North, such as Norway and Canada, to indefinitely extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, South Africa's foreign policy has shown a gradual shift away from a middle power orientation not least due to an increasing non-aligned position that calls for deep reforms to the perceived unfair world order tilted in the favour of the developed North. This shift is also visible in South African nuclear diplomacy and is eroding the middle ground that has so far sustained the non-proliferation regime. The paper argues that South Africa's middle power diplomacy has allowed it to punch above its weight in the nuclear realm, but its pursuit of international reforms has resulted in the drawing of a fault line between developed and developing countries. It is in the interest of nuclear non-proliferation to regain the middle ground by forming broad coalitions amongst all actors interested in nuclear disarmament.

Notes

The Pelindaba Treaty has since entered into force—a feather in the cap of the South African government and the non-proliferation community in that country (Broodryk and Stott, 2009).

From a state-centric approach, the system level of foreign policy analysis focuses on how a state's foreign policy behaviour is influenced by the international system of states.

See Neack (2003, p. 166): ‘Middle power studies all have emphasised middle power vulnerability to changes in the central great power relationship. The central great power relationship defines the system, and establishes the range for permissible actions particularly for states closest to the top. Middle powers understand this constraint and carefully negotiate their own positions and behaviours within the tolerable range. As the central relationship changes, so too do the possible roles and behaviours of the middle powers.’

South Africa's relations with states such as Cuba and Libya, its participation in the 1998 Operation Boleas in Lesotho, and its handling of the crisis in Zimbabwe are prominent examples here.

South Africa embarked on a nuclear weapons programme in 1970 and constructed its first nuclear device in 1977. Between 1981 and 1989, South Africa constructed six nuclear weapons, with a seventh nearing completion when President F.W. de Klerk shut down the programme in November 1989 and ordered all seven devices to be destroyed. On 10 July 1991 South Africa acceded to the NPT and in September of the same year accepted IAEA inspections and monitoring of its nuclear facilities.

The NAC is an initiative of middle-ranking powers that calls on NWS to commit themselves to the elimination of their nuclear weapon arsenals.

‘Revisionism’ here should not be understood in the historiographical sense to mean the reinterpretation of conventionally held views of historical events. Rather, the term revisionism is used in this article to mean a foreign policy that asserts growing discontent with the current structure of international relations and a desire to assertively right perceived wrongs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rian Leith

Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Email: [email protected]

Joelien Pretorius

Department of Political Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The authors are associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.