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Constructive Engagement: Reactionary Pragmatism at its Best

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Deborah Toler
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Extract

No one is happy with the Reagan Administration’s southern Africa foreign policy strategy known as constructive engagement. Liberals object to the tilt towards South Africa, to the linkage of Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola to the Namibian negotiations; to the resulting moribund state of those negotiations; and to the deemphasis of human rights and development issues in favor of increased emphasis on military and security issues. Conservatives object to economic assistance packages for African socialist and self-styled states; to the declining U.S. support of Jonas Savimbi’s ostensibly pro-Western UNITA forces in Angola; to Administration efforts to improve relations between the United States and the Marxist states of Angola and Mozambique; and to the Administration’s apparent willingness to accept a SWAPO (i.e., communist guerrilla) outcome in Namibia.

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Focus
Information
African Issues , Volume 12 , Issue 3-4 , Fall/Winter 1982 , pp. 11 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1982 

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References

Notes

1. Holsti, Ole R. and Rosenau, James N., “The Foreign Policy Beliefs of American Leaders, 1976, 1980,” Perspectives on American Foreign Policy: Selected Readings, Kegley, Charles W. Jr., and Wittkopf, Eugene R., eds., (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

2. Hans J. Morgenthau, “Defining the National Interest—Again: Old Superstitions, New Realities,” Perspectives on American Foreign Policy.

3. Sweezy, Paul M. and Magdoff, Harry, “U.S. Foreign Policy in the 1980s,” Critical Issues in American Foreign Policy, Stack, John, ed. (Guilford, Ct.: Dushkin Publishing Group, 1983)Google Scholar.

4. Christine Root, “Reagan’s African Policy Suits Pretoria,” The Guardian (January 21, 1981).

5. See Crocker, Chester A., “The U.S. Policy Process in South Africa,” The American People and South Africa, Hero, Alfred O. Jr., and Barrett, John, eds. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1981), p. 145 Google Scholar; and Crocker, Chester A., “South Africa: Strategy for Change,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 59, no. 2 (Winter 1980/81), p. 327 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Holsti, K. J., International Politics: A Framework for Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), pp. 151-57Google Scholar.

7. Bissell, Richard E., South Africa and the United States: The Erosion of an Influence Relationship (New York: Praeger, 1982), p. 138 Google Scholar.

8. Kissinger reasoned: “The whites are here to stay and the only way constructive change can come about is through them. There is no hope for blacks to gain the rights they seek through violence.” See Khawas, Mohamed a El and Cohen, Barry, eds., The Kissinger Study of Southern Africa: National Security Study Memorandum 39 (Westport, Ct.: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1976), pp. 105-6Google Scholar.

9. Crocker, Chester A., “Current and Projected Military Balances in South Africa,” South Africa into the 1980s, Bissell, R. E. and Crocker, C. A., eds., (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1979), p. 95 Google Scholar.

10. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, pp. 343-44.

11. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, p. 343.

12. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, p. 333.

13. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, p. 350.

14. Crocker, in The American People and South Africa, p. 153.

15. Crocker, in The American People and South Africa,> p. 156.

16. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, p. 324. Emphasis is mine.

17. Leaked State Department Memorandum reprinted in TransAfrica News Report (August 1981), p. 6.

18. TransAfrica News Report, p. 4.

19. de St. Jorre, John, “Africa: Crisis of Confidence,” America and the World, 1982, Foreign Affairs 61:3 (1983), p. 685 Google Scholar.

20. See the articles by Bertolin, Gordon and Nagorski, Andrew in Whitaker, Jennifer Seymour (ed.), Africa and the United States: Vital Interests (New York: New York University Press, Council on Foreign Relations, 1978)Google Scholar.

21. Crocker, “Current and Projected Military Balances,” p. 90.

22. Samuels, Michael A., et al., Implications of Soviet and Cuban Activities in Africa for U.S. Policy (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 1979), p. 61 Google Scholar.

23. Crocker, Chester, “The Search for Regional Security in Southern Africa,” Current PolicyNo. 453 (February 15, 1983), p. 2 Google Scholar.

24. “Memo,” TransAfrica News Report, p. 3. Emphasis is mine.

25. “Angola: Some Economic Notes,” African Index, V:5 (April 15, 1982), p. 20 Google Scholar.

26. Samuels, et al., Implications, p. 66.

27. Crocker, Foreign Affairs, p. 345.