Beggar Your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa, and: South Africa in Namibia: The Botha Strategy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 219 King Hussein, according to Day, and coupled with serious external threats from Israel and Syria, Jordan is in a very tenuous position. Jordan has survived to date due to the strength of its leadership. Day, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs, does not foresee a Palestinian takeover ofJordan in the absence of the Hashemite monarchy. But he acknowledges that a solution to the Palestinian problem is an integral part of the monarchy's future survival. The king's past relationship with the Palestinians has been uneven, and he must move with caution. The author sees the acceptance of UN Resolution 242, leading to the return of the occupied territories for peace, as the logical road to a settlement of the Palestinian problem. Here Day echoes a view on the settlement of the West Bank problem that is shared by many. But he goes further in his analysis ofJordan's future role when he urges greater U.S. involvement with, and commitment to, Jordan. He would like to see more U.S. participation in a negotiated peace for the West Bank as well as increased economic support for a country whose stability is vital to U.S. interests. Day concludes, "So central are these areas to Jordan's survivability , and so important is Jordan to American policy in the Middle East, that a continuing effort should be made by Americans to understand the domestic dynamics of the country and their influence on its foreign policy. To this purpose these few chapters are dedicated." To that purpose, these few chapters are quite commendable. Beggar Your Neighbors: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa. By Joseph Hanlon. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1986. 352 pp. $35.00/cloth. South Africa in Namibia: The Botha Strategy. By Robert S. Jaster. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985. 114 pp. $7.75/paper. Reviewed by Peter Goldstein, M.A. candidate, SAIS A recent disaster in a South African gold mine that killed over 100 black miners led once again to denunciations from all sides of the improper treatment of South Africa's indigenous peoples. Subsequent reports, however, revealed that the majority of those killed were in fact not native South Africans but migrant workers who had come from neighboring countries in search of wage labor jobs. The disaster was but one example of how these countries— the so-called "frontline states" — are woefully dependent on South Africa for a wide variety of economic needs, from employment and transportation to imports and exports. The apartheid state has an economic and political stranglehold on the region that makes prospects for regional development grim and prospects for regional peace virtually nonexistent. Joseph Hanlon's Beggar Your Neighbors is a historical and factual account of the relationship between South Africa and the frontline states, focusing on South Africa's methods of and motivations for perpetuating its hegemony over its majority-ruled neighbors. His analysis of South Africa as a regional power 220 SAIS REVIEW is thorough and convincing, and his arguments carry implications for the debate over economic sanctions as a viable policy alternative for Western nations. Hanlon first outlines the multiple goals of South Africa's aggressive strategy of "regional destabilization" to show how critical it is for the political survival of the country's current leader, President Pieter W. Botha. In the category of political aims Botha would like to create a "buffer zone" around his country that would shield it against possible insurrection by the African National Congress (ANC) and other "terrorist" groups threatening the apartheid system. President Botha and counterparts— like Foreign Minister Roelof (Pik) Botha—see persistent military harassment as the only way to demoralize illegal opposition from South African blacks living outside the nation's borders. But the presence of the ANC, according to Hanlon, also serves as a pretext for Pretoria's unlawful attacks launched on the economic infrastructure of neighboring countries to sustain the frontline states' underdevelopment and dependency. The Botha regime needs living proof of the problems of black rule to justify apartheid at home, and it makes political sense to block any successful economic projects in the region. Otherwise the...