Pretoria's “total strategy” and low‐intensity warfare in Southern Africa

Abstract

Since the late 1970s the Republic of South Africa has faced mounting internal and external threats to the white regime which it assumes are motivated and controlled by the Soviet Union. Pretoria's response to this has been the creation of what is called the “Total Strategy.” This is characterized by a near wartime level of resource mobilization, the integration of political, economic, and military resources, and a combination of negative and positive inducements used against threats to the regime. Since its inception, negative inducements, particularly the use of force, have increasingly been stressed at the expense of positive inducements. The Total Strategy represents the most sophisticated development of low‐intensity conflict doctrine in the world today, particularly the psychological dimensions of conflict, but its long‐term viability may be challenged by a range of dilemmas and contradictions.