South Africa's Weapons of Mass Destruction

Notes

Notes ONE. INTRODUCTION 1. The term “weapons of mass destruction” has been used as a shorthand reference for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their means of delivery. Many analysts also consider radiological weapons to be weapons of mass destruction . Most of the research and development on vehicles that deliver weapons of mass destruction focused on ballistic missiles and bombers until the late 1990s, when Russia and the United States officially acknowledged the existence of miniaturized nuclear warheads that could be delivered by other means. Today there is greater recognition that a variety of means may be used to deliver nuclear, radiological , biological, and chemical weapons. 2. Neorealist theory emerged with Kenneth Waltz’s book Theory of International Politics (1979). Waltz believed that “classical realism” had defects that could be cured by applying a more scientific approach. He defined the international system as a precise three-dimensional structure. First, anarchy is the ordering principle of the “self-help” international system, where the quest for survival requires all states to seek security through the accretion of military power. Second, in this anarchic system, each state is a separate, autonomous, and formally equal unit and each must count only on its own resources, not on those of other states. Third, states cannot be differentiated by their functions, but they differ in their capabilities . The distribution of capabilities, unequal and shifting, defines the relative power of states and predicts variations in “balance of power” behavior. Thus, international orders vary according to the number of great powers. Waltz argued that states in anarchy choose between “balancing power” and “bandwagoning” and prefer balancing because the power of other states is always a threat. Waltz’s book influenced a generation of international relations scholars. 3. Organizational theory is a body of generalizations about the patterned regularities in the behavior found in large modern organizations. Bureaucratic politics is a related set of propositions that explains decision making in large organizations as political games based upon struggles between contending factions with different positions, and hypothesizes that “where you stand depends on where you sit.” See Graham Allison and Philip Seiko, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999). 4. Throughout the book we draw upon several different bodies of theoretical and empirical research. Relevant explanations using neorealist theory include Bruce Buenos de Mesquita, Principles of International Politics: People’s Power, Preferences, and Perceptions (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2000); Michael P. Sullivan , Theories of International Relations: Transition vs. Persistence (New York: Palgrave, 2001); and Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979). We also found comparative foreign-policy theory and research useful for emphasizing the importance of such concepts as culture, historical linkages, and the impact of changes in the external environment, including the foreign policies of other countries. See, for example, C. F. Hermann, C. W. Kelley, Jr., and James N. Rosenau, New Directions in the Study of Foreign Policy (Boston, Mass.: Allen & Unwin, 1987); James N. Rosenau, The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York: The Free Press, 1980). At the microlevel, several lines of research were helpful in this study, including organizational and bureaucratic politics approaches and political psychological re- search on determinants of recurring foreign-policy decisions. We also looked at approaches that focused on perceptual, cognitive, and other individual characteristics of political leaders; the role of shared national images; small-group interactions ; and shared representations of problems developed by political actors viewed as processors of limited information attempting to reach agreement on ill-defined problems and group-interaction processes. See D. Sylvan and J. F. Voss, eds., Problem Representation in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For relevant research on organizational and bureaucratic politics, see Graham Allison and Philip Seiko, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis , 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999); John Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974); and Sagan’s analysis in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons : A Debate (New York: Norton, 1995). For recent works on the determinants of sequential foreign-policy decision making relating to recurring political problems, see Helen E. Purkitt and Stephen Burgess, “Changing Course and Responding to Negative Feedback: A Case of Sequential Decision-Making in South Africa, 1989–1994,” paper presented at the symposium Responding to Negative Feedback in Foreign Policy Decision-Making, George Bush Center for Presidential Studies, Bush School of Government and Public Service, College Station, Texas...