South Africa’s Armaments Industry: Continuity and Change after a Decade of Majority Rule

South Africa’s arms industry is an interesting phenomenon. Virtually nonexistent in 1960, the industry developed with almost unprecedented rapidity and by the mid ‘80s employed more than 150,000 people. Motivated by the quest for security and involvement in regional wars, South Africa was one of a handful of states in the developing world willing to bear the economic burden of a massive arms industry and the result was an armaments industry like no other in Africa. With the advent of majority rule in 1994, the new South African government faced many difficult choices, including the future of an important pillar of the thoroughly discredited apartheid government-the armaments industry. After more than a decade of majority rule, the armaments industry is a key government partner in the new South Africa and a global actor in its own right. This book explores the significant historical and ideological obstacles the new South Africa overcame and the rehabilitation of the arms industry in the 1990s to serve and ultimately contribute to the country’s redevelopment.