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US Defence Interests in Africa and South Africa*
INTRODUCTION
The people of South Africa now stand at the edge of what many American feel is the most important political event in Africa in the 20th century. It is a privilege to be here amidst the excitement of these historic developments.
The movement towards democracy and multi party elections in your country is part of a trend - though, unfortunately, an uneven trend - which we see throughout the world. Americans are very much aware that the road ahead will not be an easy one for you and that South Africans alone must chart it. My brief visit here has brought home to me that your people have great expectations. It has also underscored to me the realism of South Africans about meeting those expectations. Both in the negotiations process that has led to the dawn of democracy and in the broad consultations on how to restore growth and investment, South Africans have demonstrated flexibility, vision and practically. You have extraordinary challenges in front of you; challenges which will require every bit of your courage, strength, persistence, and intellectual powers. But, beginning with my first visit to South Africa nearly eight years ago, these are virtues I have come to associate with your national character. I am confident that you can and will overcome the challenges you now confront. We urge all South Africans to now join in this effort, eschewing violence and seeking their place in the electoral process that is unfolding.
NEW STRATEGIC REALITIES
Americans have long maintained contact with all segments of South African society, from one end of the political spectrum to the other. I think it fair to say that we have been impressed with the decency, dauntless spirit, good humor, and openness to reconciliation which distinguish South African. We applaud the statesmanship and co-operations that have led you to your upcoming historic transition to a nonracial, multiparty democracy, and the normalization of our relations with you.
The primary interest of the United States in South Africa is in seeing your experiment succeed. In that context, we would like to be helpful where you determine we can be. In this regard, we are looking forward, following the election, to the lifting of UN sanctions and the resumption of normal military-to-military relations between our armed forces and your National Defence Force.
These relations between our militaries will be conducted in the context of new strategic realities:
- The strategic chess board of the cold war has been smashed. The roles that South Africa played or didn't play on that board are no longer worth debating. It is no longer relevant.
- With the global struggle of the cold war behind us, and with apartheid becoming a subject of the past, we have been freed to pursue a relationship with South Africa on its own merits.
- Those merits are considerable. South Africa has a very important economy and the strongest, most professional military in Sub-Saharan Africa. We applaud your plans to make this military more broadly representative, and more reflective of your society, and we strongly support your determination to implement the principle of effective civilian control of an even more professional force.
- As your military undergoes realignment to meet new circumstances, you will find us prepared to share our experiences of similar transition to enable you to draw whatever lessons - positive or negative - you choose to. But, I must stress, it is you - not we - who must determine what in the experience of the United States is relevant to your circumstances. We can't do this for you and we won't be so arrogant as to attempt to do so.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES IN AFRICA
Before addressing the role the United Sates Department of Defence might play with the new South Africa, let me take a few minutes to address our interests in the African continent as a whole.
Firstly, I must acknowledge that our strategic interests in Africa are very modest. We have no need to establish a permanent or significant military presence anywhere in Africa. We are satisfied with the arrangements for transit and occasional facilities usage we do have. We station no permanent troops, have no bases and homeport no ships in Africa. We do have formally access agreements with Kenya as well as Somalia and Liberia - these latter two are, of course, currently in abeyance. And the United States Air Force operates a satellite tracking station in the Seychelles similar to the one we used to operate here. Other than those participating in United Nations operations in Somalia, there are fewer than 300 US military personnel assigned in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the majority of those are US marine guards at our Embassies. The balance are defence attaché and security assistance staff personnel.
But while we have very few tangible strategic interests in Africa, that is not the same as being uninterested in developments on this continent. Quite the contrary. As I have already indicated, US policy towards Africa is undergoing fundamental change to reflect the end of the cold war and of apartheid. The Clinton administration recognizes that a prospering, stable and democratic African continent is important to the United States. Our major goals for Africa, as elsewhere, include the encouragement of democracy and human rights, sustainable economic development, and environmental protection. Central to these goals are the complementary objectives of conflict resolution and peacekeeping, and assisting in the right-sizing, force rationalization, and professionalization of African Armies, to enable them to play a more supportive role in addressing African as well as global problems. We in the Department of Defence have focused our attention on how to realize these objectives of American policy.
The current pattern of our activities in Africa is very modest. We do maintain a training programme, which we call IMET, (International Military Education and Training) with most African countries, and in recent years have been training more than 500 African officers and NCO's each year in the United States. We have had a small grant aid programme as well, but-sadly-that has now almost vanished under the impact of budgetary austerity, and it is not clear whether funding will be restored in the future. If funds become available we would hope to continue such useful programme as African coastal security, military civic action, and assistance in maintaining the biological diversity of Africa to the benefit of future generations.
We also conduct a rather diverse humanitarian assistance programme in Africa, whereby selected excess defense items are made available to local civil - not military - institutions; frequently these are provided in the context of a natural or manmade disaster. We also have a modest exercise programme, mainly orchestrated by our European command, with a number of African nations. These exercises are usually conducted by our special forces or national guard personnel. For the most part, these are small, light infantry or civic action type exercises; if civic action, they would generally employ field engineering or medical specialists. A number of these exercises have taken place in Southern Africa and others are planned in this area for later in the year.
And, of course, I should mention our growth involvement in peacekeeping, the most ambitious and controversial of which has been our humanitarian intervention in Somalia. But in varying ways we have also been involved in conflict resolution and peacekeeping in many other African countries, including Mozambique, Angola, Liberia, and the Western Sahara. We consider this an important activity for the future, although we expect our efforts to focus mainly on peacekeeping support - to the UN, to the OAU, or to regional organisations such as Ecowas - rather than on introducing US Military Forces as such.
WHAT SOUTH AFRICA MIGHT FIND IN THE UNITED STATES EXPERIENCE
Any nation must, of course, take care in selecting and adapting the experiences of other nation to its own needs and circumstances. That is especially true of South Africa, given your unique history. Nevertheless, as I indicated, our experience in an open book and we are prepared to share it to the extent you wish to take advantage of it.
The US Military has had a uniquely rich experience in integrating people of different cultural, ethnic, racial backgrounds and gender into a cohesive fighting force. A look at our experiences may help you to avoid some of the pitfalls which occasionally caused us to stumble.
We are proud of our long and strong tradition of civilian control of the military and the professionalism of our forces, who see the defence of our constitution and the rights we enjoy under it as their primary duty. We believe this experience can also serve as a useful experience for many African countries, including South Africa. Our constitution, like South Africa's new constitution, spells out in considerable detail the sweeping legislative and executive powers and authority of the civilian government over the military. Our constitutional system commit our military to follow the rule of law at all times and under all circumstances. Our over 200 years of effort working to perfect this system may contain some lessons of benefit to the new South African military and its civilian leaders. But I wish again to stress that whether or not this is the case is something you-not we-must determine. There are no 'made in America' solutions to be imposed on South Africa's unique challenges.
In fact, the opening of the United States armed forces to their South African colleagues has already begun: Last fall four SADF and four MK officials spent a month in the US looking at how we approach racial and sexual integration in our military and our society. It is a matter of regret that Inkatha chose not to attend, though it was invited to participate. The Chief of your Navy recently joined his international colleagues at a symposium sponsored by the Chief of our Navy. The commandant of our Defence Equal Opportunity Management Institute (MEOMI) was here recently. Members of his staff will return at your invitation. We are open to other programmes of co-operation in which you may be interested. On this visit, for example, we have discussed the process for beginning an IMET training relationship. Under such a programme South Africans could attend US Military Schools to acquire specialised training of interest to them. Many other opportunities will no doubt occur to both of us as the restrictions the United States adopted during the era of apartheid are swept away - something I expect will happen immediately after your elections and the formation of your new government. As I said at the outset, our objective is a normal and mutually beneficial relationship with South Africa's new national defence force, as soon as is practicable.
THE FUTURE
South Africa has great potential both economically and politically which apartheid prevented it from realizing. Now the shackles that have hobbled your country are being struck off. We expect the new South Africa to assume its proper role as a political, military economic and cultural leader on the continent. We believe that South Africa will serve as a model for people throughout Africa to emulate, and that they will do so.
One outgrowth of this new opportunity should be direct and vigorous South African participation in conflict resolution and peacekeeping efforts in Africa, a role in which Southern Africa has heretofore been represented by several of your neighbours Botswana and Zimbabwe, and more recently Namibia and Zambia. Africans must do more to manage the affairs of this continent. The UN is simply overstretched, particularly in Africa where it now has 7 peacekeeping or peace monitoring operations underway. For this reason we have been encouraging the concept of regional responsibility for conflict resolution. I am not alone in seeing South African capabilities as critical to the success of African efforts to contain or resolve crises throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. South African membership in Africa's regional organisations, like the OAU, should facilitate its entry into such endeavor, in full cooperation with other African States.
A closely related aspect, which I would like to raise today in an exploratory way, will be South Africa's participation in the emergent security consultative and cooperative mechanisms of the Southern Africa region. Certainly there will be opportunities - in some cases compelling requirements - for such consultation and cooperation. On this trip, I have learned with interest that a security consultative mechanism has evolved on the margins of the SADCC. You may also recall the now defunct Joint Commission in which South Africa, Angola, and Namibia - as well as the US, the then USSR, and Cuba - participated, to give effect to and address political-security problems arising in implementation of the Southwest Africa peace acords. I might also cite the South Africa-Botswana-Zimbabwe consultations on the current Lesotho crisis. These are only three examples of the practical need for and ad hoc development of such mechanisms. Establishment of appropriate security consultative fora and procedures on a more permanent basis should help secure the region for economic growth and cooperation and foster the growth of democracy.
In the same spirit, I would assume the progressive development in the region of expanded opportunities, including for South Africa, for shared access to military educational and training facilities, as well as personnel and perhaps small unit exchange programmes, combined exercises and the like. We ourselves have a broad pattern of such activities with our friends and allies around the world, and we have seen interest and growth along similar lines in Africa. It seems logical to project a prominent role for South Africa in this pattern of reciprocal professional assistance, building to some extent on the shared intellectual relationships being developed at seminars and study groups such as this one kindly hosted by IDP today.
For our part, we want to enjoy a friendly and professional working relationship with the new South African National Defence Force. We think that professional exchanges would be mutually beneficial. In addition to sharing our experiences, we hope that you will be willing to share yours. We know we can learn from you and I include Umkhonto We Sizwe and other forces to be joined in the new services as well, of course, as the SADF. We have a professional interest in learning from your doctrine and operational techniques, from, your experience in addressing the difficult medical and health problems of the region, and from some of the specialised equipment that has been developed over the years of your isolation from the major arms-exporting countries. We do not, in short, regard our future relationship as in any respect a one way street.
Let me state unequivocally, however, that we have no requirement for military facilities in South or Southern Africa. This includes naval facilities. We have no particular requirement for our warships to call at South African ports, although we would like to be free to do so if the opportunity presents itself and is mutually agreeable. We also do not seek to promote arms sales to the new South Africa, though we hope that our relations will develop to include military trade in both directions of the kind that is normal between friendly countries.
CONCLUSION
Overall then, from a military point of view, we have modest, not compelling, interests in South Africa. Mainly, we simply want to see South Africa succeed in its current endeavor. When it does success, we believe South Africa can be a shining example for the rest of the continent and those elsewhere in the world seeking to democratize. To the extent that military relationships between our two countries foster security, the rule of law, and the defence of democracy, we would like to promote them.
Americans recall South Africa before the advent of apartheid as a respected member of the family of nations. South Africans, both black and white, joined Americans in the defence of democracy and liberty in both World Wars and in Korea. The many peoples of South Africa have a history of military valor. We respect you as warriors, and we salute your political courage as well. We wish you succeed in the great process of change on which you have now set out. We look forward to our soldiers, sailors and airmen being able to share experience with yours in the future. The new South Africa will find a respectful friend and partner in the United States.
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