South African Nuclear Development in the 1970s: A Non-Proliferation Conundrum?

ABSTRACT The 1970s is often argued to be the era marking the beginning of the overall transformation of the international system and the nuclear order, following the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) entering into force in 1970. South Africa challenged this nuclear order from the outset. In addition to regarding the NPT as inherently discriminatory and hypocritical in allowing a difference between nuclear weapon ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, the South African apartheid regime felt threatened by Soviet expansionism into Southern Africa. Facing international condemnation and isolation due to its repressive domestic politics of racial segregation, and gripped in a war against Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces in Angola, the apartheid regime was quick to move from a decision to build one peaceful nuclear explosive device in 1974, to a formal decision in 1978 to design and develop a secret strategic nuclear deterrent. Using knowledge and skills acquired during a period of techno-nationalism and Western collaboration during the 1960s, South Africa was able to cross this threshold in a relatively short space of time, thereby signaling a clear departure from the nuclear non-proliferation regime that the five nuclear powers of the NPT were trying to establish.