^{page 1 note 1} The thalosocratic point of view–namely, from the perspective of the seafarers and, by extension, the seapowers–provides a contrast to the essentially land-centred concerns of many Africanists who regard the north of the continent as part of the ‘Arab world’ and hence not such a legitimate area of interest as the ‘real’ Africa, south of the Sahara.

^{page 2 note 1} The ‘chasses gardées’ means literally the ‘exclusive hunting grounds’, but in this context, the ‘exclusive spheres of interest’ is the nearest equivalent in English.

^{page 3 note 1} The word ‘indigenes’ will be used from time to time, rather than ‘natives’, which often gives offence. In the French-speaking world, however, the latter term is more acceptable than the former.

^{page 5 note 1} Harkavy, R. E., ‘The Pariah State Syndrome’, in Orbis (Philadelphia), 21, Fall 1977, pp. 623–64. The author includes Taiwan and South Korea, as well as Israel and South Africa, in the category of the parish state, and stresses isolation and the incentive to develop unclear weapons. He does not mention, however, what seems to me to be the essence of ‘pariahtude’, and what really sets Israel and South Africa apart, namely that they are settler states with unacceptable solutions to the ‘native problem’ in the age of decolonisation.Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 1} Over 330 ships were put on the black-list between 1948 and 1959. The U.N.-sponsored scheme was that cargo in foreign ships bound for Israel would be allowed to go through the Canal if sent c.i.f. (that is, belonging to the seller), and that cargo from Israel in foreign ships would go through f.o.b. (that is, belonging to non-Israeli buyers). Israel decided to put this arrangement to the test in December 1959 by sending cement from Haifa to Asmara via Djibouti f.o.b. in a Greek ship, the ‘Astypalea’. This was stopped at the entrance to the Canal, the cargo was confiscated, and the vessel was then allowed to return to its home port of Athens. Lenczowski, George, The Middle East in World Affairs (London, 1980).Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 2} For a discussion of Egypt's request to the U.N. force to leave Sharm-el-Sheik, see Rikhye, Major-General Indar Jit, The Sinai Blunder (London, 1980), who was the commander of the U.N.force in Sinai.Google Scholar

^{page 8 note 1} Monroe, Elizabeth and Farrar-Hockley, A., 'The Arab-Israeli War, October 1973: background and events, in Adelphi Papers (London), No. 111, 1974.Google Scholar

^{page 9 note 1} Karawan, Ibrahim, ‘Egypt and the Western Alliance: the politics of Westomania?’, in Spiegel, S. L. (ed.), The Middle East and the Western Alliance (London, 1982), pp. 163–81. A pro-Soviet faction lead by Ali Sabri had attempted to topple Anwar Sadat in 1971;Google ScholarWhetten, Lawrence L., ‘The Arab-Israeli Dispute: great power behaviour’, in Treverton, Gregory (ed.), Crisis Management and the Super Power in the Middle-East (London, 1981), pp. 44–85.Google Scholar

^{page 9 note 2} In 1968, 125 tankers that could carry over 200,000 tons of oil were on order, as opposed to only 30 the previous year, and by the end of 1969, 80 per cent of all such vessels being built were in this category. Tankers of 35,000 tons could go through Suez fully loaded, but when the Canal was closed for the first time in 1956 this meant an increase in cost of £2.50 per ton for going round the Cape. However, by the early 1970s, the total cost of transporting oil round the Cape by very large crude carriers was down to £I a ton. See Couper, A. D., The Geography of Sea Transport (London, 1972).Google Scholar

^{page 11 note 1} Journal de la marine-marchande (Paris), 3 05 1979.Google Scholar

^{page 12 note 1} In 1966, the last full year before the Six Day War, 80 per cent of the tonnage through the Canal was oil. With the first full year of the reopened Canal in 1976–7, oil made up only 30 per cent of the tonnage; 34 million tons compared to 850 million going around the Cape. See Labrousse, Henri, ‘Petrole et tensions autour de Golfe’, in Defense nationale (Paris), 08–09 1979, pp. 57–68,Google Scholar and also Roger Guillot, ‘Quel avenir pour le canal de Suez?’, in Ibid. February 1979, pp. 85–92. According to Journal de la marine-marchande, 25 December 1980, the difference in tonnage going north or south also underlines the fact that the Canal has changed from an oil to a dry cargo highway: in 1960, of a total tonnage of 168 million, only 29 million went southwards, whereas, by 1978, 82 million out of a total of 160 million passed in that direction.

The Egyptian Government has decided to implement a two-stage plan to deepen and enlarge the Canal in order to attract back at least some of the oil trade and profit from the huge traffic in manufacturing goods imported by the oil-producing states. The total cost of the projected improvements was estimated at $1,000 million, to be financed from loans from the oil-producing states, the World Bank, and the western users of the Canal plus Japan. But there are doubts about the profitability of investing this enormous sum, and then not being able to attract enough traffic to cover the costs. See Ibid. 25 December 1980.

^{page 12 note 2} Morskoy Flot, reproduced in Journal de la marine-marchande, 8 February 1979. According to Labrousse, Henri, Le Golf et le canal (Paris, 1973),Google Scholar Suez reduces the distance from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean by 70 per cent. One year after the reopening of the Canal, the U.S.S.R. with 574 ships and 1,462 transits ranked as the second largest user after Greece; Ibid.

^{page 13 note 1} The United States had a major communications station at Kagnew in Ethiopia before the advent of the revolutionary régime in 1977, when Washington stopped arms supplies. In November 1977 the Soviet Union established an air bridge from South Yemen designed to drive the Somalian army out of the Ogaden Province where Cuban troops did most of the fighting, thereby freeing the Ethiopians to crush the Eritreans with the help of the Soviet fleet, which used its artillery to bombard Massona in 1978. The effective intervention of the U.S.S.R. and Cuba saved the régime in Addis Ababa and kept Ethiopia together. The dream of turning the Red Sea into an Arab lake has had to be shelved but, significantly, only one Arab state, South Yemen, was on the side of the Soviet bloc in helping Christian Ethiopia against Islamic Somalia.

^{page 14 note 1} Rondot, P. L., ‘La Mer rouge peut-elle devenir un lac de paix Arabe?’, in Defense nationale, 10 1977, pp. 71–84.Google Scholar

^{page 14 note 2} Le Monde (Paris), 24 05 1979.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 1} See special number of Orbis, Fall 1982, for a forum on ‘Navies in Foreign Policy’. For a small selection from the growing specialist literature, see Jukes, G., ‘The Indian Ocean in Soviet Naval Policy’, in Adelphi Papers, No. 87, London, 1976;Google ScholarRabier, Christiane and Angrand, Jean, ‘La Strategie des grandes puissances authour du territoire français des Afars et des Issas et de I'ocean indien’, in Revue française de science politique (Paris), 26, 1976;Google ScholarCottrell, A.J. et al. , Sea Power and Strategy in the Indian Ocean (London, 1981);Google Scholar and Labrouse, Henri, ‘Ocean indien:nouveau coeur du monde’, in Monde en Dévelopement (Paris), 21, 1978, pp. 132–45, written by a retired Admiral of the French Navy who was one of General de Gaulle's advisers.Google Scholar

^{page 18 note 1} Simonstown Agreement (London, 1955), Cmnd. 9520.Google Scholar

^{page 19 note 1} For a discussion of the legal aspects of the dispute which arose between Britain and South Africa over defence, see Lawrie, Gordon, ‘Britain's Obligations under the Simonstown Agreement’, in International Affairs (London), 47, 1971, pp. 708–28.Google Scholar

^{page 20 note 1} Winston, J., ‘Reflexions sur l'intervention sud-africaine en Angola’, in Revue française d'études politiques africaines (Paris), 142, 10 1977, pp. 60–9.Google Scholar

^{page 20 note 1} South Africa's population is made up of 71 per cent blacks, 16 per cent whites (of whom 60 per cent are Afrikaans-speaking), 10 per cent Coloureds, and 3 per cent Indians. The long-term plan is to reduce the number of blacks by half by removing 10 million to the Homelands; the 5.5 million who are already there have lost their South African citizenship and now travel in the Republic with a passport instead of a pass. About 35 per cent of the blacks are fully acculturated to an industrial society, and they would find it difficult to live in a ‘tribal’ Homeland.

See Marquand, Leo, The Peoples and Policies of South Africa (London, 1962),Google Scholar for a general background, and de Villers, David, The Case for South Africa (London, 1970), for a defence of the régime.Google Scholar For South African in the regional context of Southern Africa, see Nolutshungu, Sam S., South Africa in Africa: a study in ideology and Foreign policy (Manchester and New York, 1975);Google Scholar and Davidson, Basil, Slovo, Joe, and Wilkinson, Anthony R., Southern Africa: the new politics of revolution (Harmondsworth, 1976).Google Scholar For Foreign policy and international relations generally, see Spence, J. E., Republic under Pressure: a study of South African Foreign Policy (London, 1965);Google ScholarRippon, Geoffrey, ‘South Africa and Naval Strategy’, in The Round Table (London), 60, 1970, pp. 303–9;Google ScholarEl-Khawas, Mohamed A. and Cohen, Barry (eds.), The Kissinger Study of Southern Africa: National Security Study Memorandum (Secret) (London, 1975);Google ScholarVaughan, F. C. (ed.), International Pressures and Political Changes (Oxford, 1978);Google ScholarUttley, G., ‘Globalism or Regionalism’, Adelphi Paper No. 154, 1979;Google Scholar and Roy, W. T., ‘South Africa and the Indian Ocean’, in South Africa International (Johannesburg), 10, 1979.Google Scholar

^{page 22 note 1} Le Monde, 8 and 15 December 1983, and 17 March 1984.

^{page 22 note 2} The G.N.P. of South Africa represents one quarter of the total for the continent, and with the exception of oil, produces 40 percent of all minerals in Africa. In the world as a whole, South Africa ranks third after the two super-powers, as regards its wealth of minerals, and has a monopoly of some outside the Soviet Union: it is the leading producer of gold, platinum, antimony, and vanadium, and has the largest reserve of manganese. South Africa has 70 per cent of the world's chrome, and is second only to the U.S.S.R. as a producer. On top of all this, South Africa has 80 per cent of all the known coal of Africa and has the only developed agriculture on the continent.

^{page 22 note 3} Le Monde, 22 February and 8 March 1983.

^{page 23 note 1} The increase in the size of oil tankers has meant a more than proportional increase in their carrying capacity: whereas 3 tons of oil could be carried in the 1950s by each ton of deadweight shipping, the ratio has been lifted to 7 to one by the very large crude carriers. As the time for loading and discharging has not increased, the tonnage at sea has consequently been further increased. The transportation of one ton of crude from the Gulf to Europe by the Cape route only adds £1 to its average price of £130. The cost index of 100 for a tanker of 20,000 tons goes down with an increase in size as follows: 50 for 60,000 tons, 35 for 100,000 and 20 for 500,000 tons.

^{page 23 note 1} Pipelines are even more vulnerable to the continuing hostility between Israel and the Arabs, and even if all those planned between the Gulf and the Mediterranean became operational, 335 million out of a total of 550 million tons would still have to go round the Cape, according to Couper, op. cit. p. 202. In 1980, two-thirds of oil exported from the Gulf went around the Cape: one million tons a day by ten ships, on average. Leymarie, Philippe, Océan indien: nowveau coeur du monde (Paris, 1981).Google Scholar

^{page 24 note 1} It can be argued that the most active European rôle in Africa is played by France, which provides aid, in one form or another, that amounts annually to $ 1,000 million, while the E.E.C., strongly influenced by Paris, gives under the terms of the Lóme agreements, another $ 4,000 million. The African dimension beside giving substance to the policy of ‘grandeur’ also helps France to ‘balance’ Germany in Europe. Paris uses its considerable influence to get the black francophone states to ‘tolerate’ South Africa. However, although official relations with the Republic have cooled since the left came to power in France – for example, the U.N. arms embargo is now respected – commercial relations have remained strong. See Le Monde diplomatique (Paris), 04 1976,Google Scholar and Cohen, Barry and Schissel, H., L'Afrique australe de Kissinger à Carter (Paris, 1977).Google Scholar

^{page 24 note 2} See Labrousse, Henri, ‘La Route du petrole peut-elle être coupé?’, in Defense nationale, 10 1976, pp. 27–34;Google Scholar also Bernard Brionne, ‘Le Canal de Mozambique et la securité de l'Afrique du Sud’, in Ibid. February 1976.

^{page 25 note 1} Mostert, Noel, Supership (London, 1976).Google Scholar

^{page 25 note 2} Kemp, Geoffrey, ‘Maritime Access and Maritime Power’, in Cottrell, A. J. et al. , Sea Power and Strategy in the Indian Ocean (London, 1981).Google Scholar

^{page 25 note 3} The refineries in Europe have increased in size to match the very large carriers of crude oil, but as the companies have little or no storage facilities, it means that even a temporary stoppage of some supplies would halt the giant refineries and all the petro-chemical and other industries dependent on them. Couper, , op.cit.Google Scholar

^{page 26 note 1} Soviet arms aid to Africa has increased from $25 million in 1972 to $ 1,000 million in 1976, and in 1979 that amount went to Ethiopia alone. According to Chailland, G., L'Enjeu africain (Paris, 1980), the Soviet bloc had 12,000 military and 40,000 civilian experts in Africa in 1979, while some 20,000 African students were in the U.S.S.R., with as many as 4,000 black South Africans being trained in guerrilla warfare.Google Scholar

^{page 26 note 2} See Gitelson, Susan Aurelia, Israel's African Setback in Perspective (Jerusalem, 1974).Google Scholar

^{page 26 note 3} Nadelman, Ethan A., ‘Israel and Black Africa: a rapprochement?’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 19, 2, 06 1981, pp. 183–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 26 note 4} Several Arab states, notably Saudi Arabia, give aid to black Africa in order to counter the influence of Libya. See Chailland, op.cit.; and Constantin, F. and Coulon, C., ‘Islam, pétrole et dépendance: un nouvel enjeu africain’, in Revuefrançaise d'études politiques africaines, 113, 05 1975, pp. 28–51.Google Scholar See also Johnson, Willard R., ‘The Role of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21, 4, 12 1983, pp. 625–44.Google Scholar

^{page 27 note 1} Amin Dada fired the first shot on 1 October 1975 in what was to become a bitter debate in the General Assembly of the United Nations, with the United States and its N.A.T.O. allies defending Israel against the Arab-led third-world motion, supported by the Soviet bloc, that ‘Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination’, The motion was carried on 10 October 1975 by 72 to 35 votes with 32 abstentions. Report on World Affairs (London), 56, 4, 10–12 1975.Google Scholar

^{page 27 note 2} In 1974, the United States, Britain, and France vetoed a Security Council motion to expel South Africa from the United Nations, The motion was then transferred to the General Assembly, and carried by 91 to 22 votes with 19 abstentions. But as membership of the U.N. cannot be withdrawn without the approval of the Security Council, it was decided that South Africa should be suspended from the 20th session of the General Assembly, and this action has been renewed annually thereafter. Report on World Affairs, 55, 324, 07–12 1974.Google Scholar

^{page 27 note 3} According to Hauser, R., ‘Israel, South Africa, and the West’, in Washington Quarterly, 3, 1979, some leading Zionists and Israeli leaders were from South Africa, which has an important Jewish community;Google Scholar trade between the two states was then around $90 million per annum. Bullier, J., ‘Les Relations entre l'Afrique du Sud et Israel’, in Review française d'études politiques africaines, 119, 1975, pp. 54–65.Google Scholar

^{page 27 note 4} ‘For Europe, we would constitute a bulwark against Asia down there, we would be the advance post of civilization against barbarism’; Teodor Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist Movement, cited in Rodinson, Maxime, Israel: a colonial-settler state (New York, 1973), p. 43.Google Scholar

^{page 28 note 1} An indication of the strength of the ‘kith and kin’ linkage is provided by the net average annual figure of 16,600 British immigrants to South Africa for 1981 and 1982. See U.K. Government Statistical Service, Population Census and Surveys. International Migration (London), 1982 and 1983.Google ScholarPubMed