The elephant in the room

When United States (US) President Barack Obama announced in 2013 that he would host the first United States-Africa leaders' summit the next year, he was greeted with considerable scepticism. Many critics thought he was just playing catch-up with other countries and organisations which had been holding Africa summits for years, especially China. But, whatever the motives, the event itself proved to be a substantial success, probably re-setting US relations with Africa for many years to come.     

ORGANISING THE BLUES

While all governments in the region acknowledge the importance of the work of police officers, they seldom take a close look at their working conditions and the nature of police labour. While the situations in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland are different there are commonalities: police management has not changed significantly and neither has police legislation. Key concerns of the officers in the region centre on service conditions and wages. Communicating these concerns to the state is made difficult by the less than democratic approach taken by governments professing to favour democratization. A more democratic workplace for the police is of benefit to the broader community and is a crucial point to bear in mind when attempting to develop community-oriented professional policing.     

Military Spending and Economic Growth in South Asia: A Panel Data Analysis

Despite the large number and variety of studies addressing the relationship between military spending and economic growth, a consensus regarding the exact nature of any relationship between the two has proven elusive. This study uses a panel co-integration approach to examine the relationship between military spending and economic growth in the five South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh over the period of 1988–2007. It finds that a 1% increase in military spending increases real GDP by only 0.04%, suggesting that the substantial amount of public expenditure that is currently directed towards military purposes in these countries has a negligible impact upon economic growth.     

SOUTH AFRICA'S ANTI-TERROR LAW

This article argues that whereas the waves of democratization which enveloped the continent in the early 1990s following the collapse of Eastern European one-party socialism genera ted expectations of a ‘new dawn’ for ‘good governance’ and sustainable human development on the continent, one wave after another appears to have suffered serious setbacks. Indeed, a decade later, some of the most articulate pro-democracy leaders, who came into office on the crest of the democratic waves of the 1990s have sought to manipulate their countries' constitutions in order to perpetuate their presidential tenure. Such undemocratic behaviour will only fuel speculation in the industrialized world that the New Partnership for Africa's Development is just another decorative blue-print drawn up by beleaguered African despots in order to obtain new resource inflows at a time the international community under the hegemonic leadership of the Uni ted States will be wholly preoccupied with rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian roadmap.     

South Africa's threat environment: a guide for the National Planning Commission

Abstract

The mandate of South Africa's recently appointed National Planning Commission includes addressing ‘defence and security matters’. This article seeks to outline the central elements of the threat environment facing South Africa in the foreseeable future. It is argued that South Africa faces no meaningful existential threat from conventional military forces but that its security forces will need to be prepared to address possible raids and attacks by conventional military forces both on home soil and on vital interests beyond the nation's borders. Other threats highlighted include the threats posed by potential insurgencies, by terrorism, and by crime, social unrest and banditry. Also addressed is the danger of so-called hybrid threats, in which two or more of the single threat types outlined here are combined. Finally, the article challenges the National Planning Commission to rethink South Africa's policy on peace operations in the light of the need to ensure the safety and security of the nation's citizenry.     

Regional integration and nuclear energy in Africa

African states are hampered by unreliable electric energy that has not complemented economic development efforts. Recently, several African states announced plans to pursue nuclear energy in the future. However, several challenges remain for these states, notably insecurity and financial deficiencies. This paper proposes the use of regional integration arrangements to address these challenges faced by African states, as a way of complementing other efforts enabling African states to obtain nuclear energy. The existence of these arrangements and their institutional mechanisms can enable African states to enhance security and cost-effectively develop nuclear power infrastructure.     

Demobilisation,disarmament and reintegration in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The numbers game

Abstract

The creation of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) has reflected the growth in the strategic importance of Africa in US foreign policy since the end of the 1990s. One of the objectives of this new geographical military command is to forge closer links between foreign, security and development policies. However, this approach met with a number of difficulties associated with the challenge of ‘inter-agency cooperation’ among rather disparate actors from foreign affairs, defence and development. In addition, the establishment of AFRICOM has met with fierce criticism in the US and elsewhere – especially in Africa – culminating in the charge that the US foreign and development policies in Africa are being militarised. Although AFRICOM has a number of interesting features, this paper shows that it has reacted to these criticisms by realigning itself more closely with the traditional model of a military command, at the expense of the innovative interagency elements.     

‘Fighting for peace’

In Africa, most of the present conflicts are civil, intra-state wars where belligerent groups use guerrilla tactics to achieve various political, economic or ideological objectives. The atrocities and the effect of these on-going wars on innocent civilians, human suffering, poverty and development are beyond comprehension. Not surprisingly, the majority of current peace operations are in Africa, with more than 70 countries contributing forces to these conflict zones. On the continent, South Africa has come to assume a leading role in peace operations and is now a major troop-contributing country to UN and AU missions. In the past 11 years, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has taken part in no fewer than 14 peace missions. This article provides a brief background of the conflicts in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan, the different United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) mandates under which peacekeepers had to operate as well as their objectives, and the extent of South Africa's involvement in the various missions. In the last section, the major challenges, that these operations have posed are highlighted.     

South Asia's Missile Expansion

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, contrary to declarations that they are pursuing “minimum” deterrence, India and Pakistan have considerably expanded their missile forces. India has developed eleven types of missiles while Pakistan has fielded nine. These missile forces have a mixed impact on deterrence stability. Both states' medium-range missiles strengthen their countervalue deterrent capabilities against the other, though India's China-specific missiles still have limitations. India's and Pakistan's short-range missiles and first-generation naval systems raise concerns about nuclear ambiguity, command and control, and escalation across the nuclear threshold, ultimately undermining deterrence stability on the subcontinent.     

The only choice is both choices: balancing assurance and coercion in nonproliferation-focused alliance-management strategies

ABSTRACT

Conventional theories of alliance management often overemphasize the utility of either assurance or coercion in preventing allied nuclear proliferation. Historical analysis reveals that prioritizing either of these two tactics to the exclusion of the other is inadvisable. A strategy that focuses solely on security guarantees or coercive threats is likely to encourage an allied state to pursue a hedging strategy, in which the client state continues to clandestinely develop its own nuclear capabilities while remaining underneath its patron’s defensive “umbrella.” This article introduces a new framework for understanding the effectiveness of nonproliferation-focused alliance-management strategies. By exploring the cases of West Germany and South Korea, the article concludes that the best way to prevent allies from pursuing nuclear weapons is to combine assurance with coercion. This establishes an incentive–punishment relationship that limits an ally’s motivation to develop nuclear weapons. These conclusions have particular salience today, as conversations over nuclear-weapons development have become increasingly normalized in Germany and particularly in South Korea. The United States’s capacity to influence its allies’ nuclear behavior is currently being eroded through the degradation of both patron credibility and client dependence, weakening the long-term viability of the global nonproliferation regime.