The Case for Superpower Cooperation in Southern Africa

THE CASE FOR SUPERPOWER^ COOPERATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Steven Metz cursory examination of recent history suggests that superpower involvement in regional conflicts is inevitable. Such conflicts often act like magnets that inextricably draw the superpowers into proxy confrontation. Despite this image of immutability, the logic of the cold war is malleable; superpowers can opt to avoid proxy confrontation in regional conflicts. In the evolution of regional conflicts there are gates, forks, or points of decision where the superpowers choose either intensified conflict or greater cooperation. Each choice is structured by the general political climate from within and between the superpowers. This climate is cyclical. Periods dominated by conflictual behavior are followed by more conciliatory, cooperative periods. Regional conflicts involving proxies thus reflect rather than cause cycles in superpower relations. Angola and Afghanistan did not cause the death of détente— they were its manifestations. Even when the general political climate is favorable for superpower cooperation in a regional conflict, three conditions must exist before such cooperation can take place. First, no structural conflict of interests (as opposed to purely ideological differences) must be involved. Structural conflict exists when both superpowers define regional hegemony as an important national interest and when domestic factors constrain them from reevaluating this assessment and withdrawing from involvement in that region. Regional proxy confrontation will make the superpower linkage to the claims strong, and the proxies will be difficult to control, as in Steven Metz is associate professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has written on the politics of southern Africa for Comparative Strategy, The National Interest , and African Affairs, advised the Democratic Policy Commission on U.S. policy in the region, and testified before the Senate Africa Subcommittee. 199 200 SAIS REVIEW the Middle East. For various reasons structural conflict is relatively rare, and in most regional confrontations the superpowers have the potential for control and flexibility. Second, the superpowers must share the desire for a solution to the regional conflict and have the ability to obstruct a settlement imposed by the other, thus making a unilateral solution impossible . Third, superpower cooperation relating to a regional conflict is contingent on a domestic political climate supportive of cooperation. This, of course, is especially relevant for the United States. Today the conflict in southern Africa meets all these conditions. In the United States there is bipartisan agreement that current policy, which seeks to exclude the Soviets from a regional settlement, is at a dead end and the need for policy innovation is strong. The Soviets appear equally anxious to alter their policy in the region. What is missing is the will to make tough choices and act on them. Missed Opportunities for Cooperation For at least two decades the United States considered regional instability and Soviet influence to be the major threats to its national interests in southern Africa. These threats were symbiotic, since instability paved the way for Soviet influence, which in turn spawned increased instability . Since the 1960s the primary fuel for instability in southern Africa has been the conflict between black nationalism and white rule, spawning revolutions in Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Today the surviving system of white minority rule in South Africa faces a mounting insurgency. In its death throes, South Africa's apartheid regime has become a central source of regional instability. Stability was the primary goal of the United States' southern Africa policy in the late 1960s. Most Americans believed that the Soviet Union had to be excluded from the region to attain stability, but they disagreed on how to accomplish this goal. Conservatives favored association with the white regimes of Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, and South Africa. They noted that these regimes were stridently anticommunist and (until the mid-1970s) appeared able to retain political power for an extended period. Others sought to forestall Soviet influence through active association with black nationalists and opposition to minority rule. A low level of American concern with the region and incompatibility between the central objectives of encouraging human rights and excluding the Soviets combined to prevent the reconciliation of these two approaches. Policy became muddled and incoherent. While rhetorically supporting black...