The regime changed


The Republic of South Africa is the only country in the world to build a nuclear weapons program, then unbuild that program after domestic and international conditions changed.

Why did South Africa decide to build nukes, how did it build them and why did it decide to give them up? The answers are largely idiosyncratic, although they may hold some lessons for the future of nuclear weapons development on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere.

Origins of program

South Africa sought nuclear weapons for familiar reasons.

Although it enjoyed presumptive conventional dominance over any likely regional opponent, Pretoria worried that the advantage might erode over time. The South African government also appreciated that widespread disdain for its apartheid systemmight prevent Western countries — including the United States — from coming to its aid in any serious confrontation against the Soviet Union or its allies.

Nuclear weapons would provide not only a direct way of confronting a military attack against South Africa, but also a means of leveraging Western diplomatic and military support during a crisis.

South Africa could mine the requisite uranium on its own territory, and enrich it in domestic facilities. With a modern industrial economy and access to technologically sophisticated institutions of learning and research in the United States and Europe, South Africa could easily develop the technical expertise needed to build a weapon.

Already the target of harsh international disdain for its domestic institutions, the South African government did not worry overmuch about how the pursuit of nuclear weapons might make it into an international pariah.

Overall, South Africa constructed six uranium gun fission weapons similar in nature to the Little Boy weapon dropped on Hiroshima. The devices were too large to fit onto any existing South African missiles, and consequently would have been delivered by bombers such as the English Electric Canberra or the Blackburn Buccaneer.

South Africa explored the possibility of building or acquiring ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, although this would have required a substantial upgrade of the devices themselves.

No full test of the devices has ever been confirmed, as heavy pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and France helped force Pretoria to cancel an underground detonation in 1977.

Foreign Assistance


Photo (A south African RSA-3 rocket. Photo via Wikimedia.)

Deconstruction.

Rumors of foreign assistance for the South African nuclear program have circulated for years. As a general rule, states do not openly discuss their contributions to nuclear proliferation. In the case of South Africa, the nature of the regime made the idea of open assistance even more poisonous.

Still, analysts suspect or know of at least four countries that supplied a degree of support to South Africa’s nuclear program. The United States supplied much of the initial technology associated with South Africa’s civilian nuclear program under a variety of different assistance programs.

Although not intended to accelerate proliferation, the assistance did provide the basis for South Africa’s eventual nuclear program. France and Pakistan may also have supplied technical assistance at various points during the development of the program.

Allegations of Israeli support for the South African program have circulated for years. In the Cold War, Taiwan, Israel and South Africa constituted the Axis of Outcasts, countries anathema to large parts of the diplomatic community. Israel most likely supplied some technology associated with South Africa’s ballistic missile program, although the mating of these missiles with nuclear devices never reached fruition.

Israel and South Africa also exchanged some basic material components of nuclear devices, although not the devices themselves. Because of continuing secrecy, the degree of technical cooperation between the two states may never be known, but the South African nuclear devices were generally dissimilar to those believed to be in the Israeli arsenal.

Implications

Apart from the Soviet successor states, which had only very limited control over the nuclear arsenals left on their soil, South Africa is the only country to develop, then renounce, nuclear weapons. Some arms control advocates have pointed to South Africa as a potential model for further nuclear disarmament.

But the case of South Africa is deeply idiosyncratic. The core national security threats to the state disappeared simultaneous to a change in the nature of the regime, making large-scale shifts in national security policy much easier than they otherwise would have been. These conditions are unlikely to be replicated in many situations involving nuclear-armed powers.

The best we can say is that something similar could happen on the Korean Peninsula, if the North Korean regime finally collapsed and its weapons became the property of the Seoul government. In this case, regime change and a dramatic change in the threat environment might well allow the Republic of Korea to abandon the North’s nuclear program, and disassemble the remaining weapons.

But at the moment the idea of a North Korean collapse seems an increasingly distant — if still appealing — prospect. Moreover, while Seoul would undoubtedly come under immense pressure from Beijing, Washington and Tokyo to renounce and disassemble the nuclear program, the new security environment of Northeast Asia would not necessarily favor such a move.

Conclusion.

The region and the world are undoubtedly safer because of the decisions made in the 1990s to relinquish South Africa’s nuclear program. Moreover, the dismantling of the relatively small program provided a template for how other nuclear powers could think about eliminating their own programs.

However, with the exception of the Soviet successor states — which faced dramatically different constraints — no other states have yet taken up South Africa’s example. With the apparent increase in global tensions over the past few years, it seems unlikely that anyone will join South Africa in the post-nuclear club anytime soon.

https://defensenigeria.com/2017/12/07/how-south-africa-voluntarily-gave-up-its-nuclear-weapons/

Hmm ok

I don't seem to understand how world powers like USA, Russia, Germany and the likes will influence UN, NATO and few other bodies to sanction the nuclear programmes of whichever country that is against them ( Iran, North Korea etc) and openly develop theirs. If the III World War eventually breaks out how will these countries defend themselves especially in this part of the world where we are like 200years behind?
Don't get it twisted, i'm not saying nuclear weapons are good, i'm just saying these laws( nuclear sanctions) only govern the lesser countries and the elite countries. Imagine South Africa denouncing her nuclear programme because of cheap threat....dae should beta go and re-start it now....

Threecrownz:
I don't seem to understand how world powers like USA, Russia, Germany and the likes will influence UN, NATO and few other bodies to sanction the nuclear programmes of whichever country that is against them ( Iran, North Korea etc) and openly develop theirs. If the III World War eventually breaks out how will these countries defend themselves especially in this part of the world where we are like 200years behind?
Don't get it twisted, i'm not saying nuclear weapons are good, i'm just saying these laws( nuclear sanctions) only govern the lesser countries and the elite countries. Imagine South Africa denouncing her nuclear programme because of cheap threat....dae should beta go and re-start it now....

We have to be careful the kind of judgement because we do not have all the facts. These threats ain't cheap. Apartheid South Africa wad a watered down version of North Korea during that period, barely hanging on by a string. The aphatheid egime was one or two sanctions away from total economic and political collapse because of a lack of allies and trading partners. To South Africa it just wasn't worth risking economic and political armageddon over a couple of nukes they will likely never use. Threats do work. Between 1997 and 2001 Nigeria was under secrete negotiation for ballistic misssile technology from North Korea because the French were flying in an astounding amount of anti tank weapons to the Chadians at a time when Nigeria was already having border skirmishes with Cameroon and the threat of actual war became likely. Unfortunately Atiku just wouldnt shut up his mouth and because of his political ambition did a photo up with the North Koreans on the defence technology partnership. The moment the West got wind of this it was over. Just years into becoming a democracy and begging the Paris Club for $30 debt cancellation Nigeria could not afford to alleniate the West, so the threats worked, Nigeria doubled down on the deal. The Nigerian armed forces would never be the same again. 17 years down the line see how we have allowed our politicians gut the military all in the name of being being new democracy.

SSBN:



We have to be careful the kind of judgement because we do not have all the facts. These threats ain't cheap. Apartheid South Africa wad a watered down version of North Korea during that period, barely hanging on by a string. The aphatheid egime was one or two sanctions away from total economic and political collapse because of a lack of allies and trading partners. To South Africa it just wasn't worth risking economic and political armageddon over a couple of nukes they will likely never use. Threats do work. Between 1997 and 2001 Nigeria was under secrete negotiation for ballistic misssile technology from North Korea because the French were flying in an astounding amount of anti tank weapons to the Chadians at a time when Nigeria was already having border skirmishes with Cameroon and the threat of actual war became likely. Unfortunately Atiku just wouldnt shut up his mouth and because of his political ambition did a photo up with the North Koreans on the defence technology partnership. The moment the West got wind of this it was over. Just years into becoming a democracy and begging the Paris Club for $30 debt cancellation Nigeria could not afford to alleniate the West, so the threats worked, Nigeria doubled down on the deal. The Nigerian armed forces would never be the same again. 17 years down the line see how we have allowed our politicians gut the military all in the name of being being new democracy.

I feel threat works for countries that are too dependent on the west. In the case of North Korea and Iran it hasn't .

Op there is more to the South African nuclear disamarment than meets the ordinary eyes. Just know that,sir. The real truth is that the white supremacists that made up the apartheid regime had to put an end to S.A.'s nuclear weapons because they saw that the apartheid regime was coming to an end and that power was ultimately going to fall to some "nigg@rs"[Mandela's ANC]. NO. They didn't want the nigg@rs getting a hold on the nukes. This ain't no conspiracy theory.

mansakhalifa:
Op there is more to the South African nuclear disamarment than meets the ordinary eyes. Just know that,sir. The real truth is that the white supremacists that made up the apartheid regime had to put an end to S.A.'s nuclear weapons because they saw that the apartheid regime was coming to an end and that power was ultimately going to fall to some "nigg@rs"[Mandela's ANC]. NO. They didn't want the nigg@rs getting a hold on the nukes. This ain't no conspiracy theory.

I gotta admit you make a valid point.

Its a farce to assume SA dismantled all its nuclear programs, SA might have stopped it ballistic missile programs and dismantled its nuclear devices but its also a well known fact that SA government still retains the blueprints designs for nukes and still has almost all its weapons grade nuclear material stored in SA and still refuse to this day to hand it over to Western powers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/us-unease-about-nuclear-weapons-fuel-takes-aim-at-a-south-african-vault/2015/03/13/b17389f6-2bc1-4515-962d-03c655d0e62d_story.html

South Africa has in recent years contemplated activating old ballistic missiles silos at a Air Force base under a peaceful space program to put satellites in space.