South Africa’s Nuclear Programme and the Cold War

In March 1993, South African State President F. W. de Klerk stunned the world with an announcement that the South African Apartheid Government had developed six and a half nuclear bombs during a top-secret 15-year programme. A number of factors led to the decision to develop nuclear weapons; the mos...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Van Wyk, Anna-Mart (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2010
In: History compass
Year: 2010, Volume: 8, Issue: 7, Pages: 562-572
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)

MARC

LEADER 00000naa a22000002c 4500
001 1928951023
003 DE-627
005 20250624111940.0
007 cr uuu---uuuuu
008 250624s2010 xx |||||o 00| ||eng c
024 7 |a 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00699.x  |2 doi 
035 |a (DE-627)1928951023 
035 |a (DE-599)KXP1928951023 
040 |a DE-627  |b ger  |c DE-627  |e rda 
041 |a eng 
084 |a 1  |2 ssgn 
100 1 |e VerfasserIn  |0 (DE-588)1325065439  |0 (DE-627)188474947X  |4 aut  |a Van Wyk, Anna-Mart 
109 |a Van Wyk, Anna-Mart  |a Wyk, Anna-Mart Van 
245 1 0 |a South Africa’s Nuclear Programme and the Cold War 
264 1 |c 2010 
336 |a Text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a Computermedien  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a Online-Ressource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
520 |a In March 1993, South African State President F. W. de Klerk stunned the world with an announcement that the South African Apartheid Government had developed six and a half nuclear bombs during a top-secret 15-year programme. A number of factors led to the decision to develop nuclear weapons; the most important being Pretoria’s fear from the mid-1970s that a communist takeover in Southern Africa was imminent and that they needed a suitable deterrent to ensure the security of South Africa and their own position of power. It was specifically the involvement of Cuba and the Soviet Union in the Angolan Civil War that led Pretoria to a formal decision in 1978 to develop a limited nuclear capability. At the end of the 1980s, however, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, the independence of Namibia, and the imminent democratisation of South Africa brought a rapid end to the perceived ideological and security threat to South Africa and indeed made the deterrence factor of the nuclear arsenal obsolete. In August 1989, Pretoria decided to destroy the arsenal, thereby becoming the first country to voluntarily destroy a nuclear arsenal before acceding to the NPT, which happened in July 1991. This article provides a chronological overview of Apartheid South Africa’s development of a nuclear arsenal, within the framework of the Cold War. 
601 |a Programm 
773 0 8 |i Enthalten in  |t History compass  |d Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell, 2003  |g 8(2010), 7, Seite 562-572  |h Online-Ressource  |w (DE-627)509401244  |w (DE-600)2227219-7  |w (DE-576)306833107  |x 1478-0542  |7 nnas 
773 1 8 |g volume:8  |g year:2010  |g number:7  |g pages:562-572 
856 4 0 |u https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00699.x  |x Resolving-System  |z lizenzpflichtig  |3 Volltext 
856 4 0 |u https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00699.x  |x Verlag  |z lizenzpflichtig  |3 Volltext 
951 |a AR 
ELC |a 1 
ITA |a 1  |t 1 
LOK |0 000 xxxxxcx a22 zn 4500 
LOK |0 001 4737963844 
LOK |0 003 DE-627 
LOK |0 004 1928951023 
LOK |0 005 20250624110209 
LOK |0 008 250624||||||||||||||||ger||||||| 
LOK |0 040   |a DE-Tue135  |c DE-627  |d DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 092   |o n 
LOK |0 852   |a DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 852 1  |9 00 
LOK |0 935   |a ixzs  |a ixzo  |a ixrk 
ORI |a TA-MARC-ixtheoa001.raw