White Elephants: Why South Africa Gave Up the Bomb and the Implications for Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy

Abstract

This article examines why the South African government chose to dismantle its indigenous nuclear arsenal in 1993. It considers three competing explanations for South African nuclear disarmament: the realist argument, which suggests that the country responded to a reduction in the perceived threat to its security; the idealist argument, which sees the move as a signal to Western liberal democratic states that South Africa wished to join their ranks; and a more pragmatic argument—that the apartheid government scrapped the program out of fear that its nuclear weapons would be misused by a black-majority government. The article argues that the third explanation offers the most plausible rationale for South Africa’s decision to denuclearize. Indeed, it contends that the apartheid South African government destroyed its indigenous nuclear arsenal and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to “tie the hands” of the future ANC government, thereby preventing any potential misuse of the technology, whether through its proliferation or use against a target.