South Africa's Armaments Industry: Continuity and Change after a Decade of Majority Rule

(Paperback)

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South Africa's arms industry is an interesting phenomenon. Virtually nonexistent in 1960, the industry developed with almost unprecedented rapidity and by the mid '80s employed more than 150,000 people. Motivated by the quest for security and involvement in regional wars, South Africa was one of a handful of states in the developing world willing to bear the economic burden of a massive arms industry and the result was an armaments industry like no other in Africa.

With the advent of majority rule in 1994, the new South African government faced many difficult choices, including the future of an important pillar of the thoroughly discredited apartheid government-the armaments industry. After more than a decade of majority rule, the armaments industry is a key government partner in the new South Africa and a global actor in its own right. This book explores the significant historical and ideological obstacles the new South Africa overcame and the rehabilitation of the arms industry in the 1990s to serve and ultimately contribute to the country's redevelopment.

Reviews

Henk (U.S. Air War College) is well qualified to reveal the development of South Africa's armaments industry. South Africa's Achievement in the arms industry is astonishing, for under apartheid it faced limited resources and international sanctions. Yet the regime managed to foster manufacturing of excellent weapons in a short time (197689) and without export markets....Apartheid is gone and South Africa has changed; nuclear bombs have been dismantled, the arms manufacturing reorganized but the industrypreserved. Summing Up: RECOMMENDED. Graduate students and practitioners. -- F.L. Mokhtari, National Defense University * Choice Reviews *
Henk (U.S. Air War College) is well qualified to reveal the development of South Africa's armaments industry. South Africa's Achievement in the arms industry is astonishing, for under apartheid it faced limited resources and international sanctions. Yet the regime managed to foster manufacturing of excellent weapons in a short time (197689) and without export markets....Apartheid is gone and South Africa has changed; nuclear bombs have been dismantled, the arms manufacturing reorganized but the industry preserved. Summing Up: RECOMMENDED. Graduate students and practitioners. -- F.L. Mokhtari, National Defense University * Choice Reviews *

Author Bio

Dan Henk is an Associate Professor of Leadership at the U.S. Air War College, and a former Army Officer with extensive experience in Africa. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Florida.