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The New U.S. Role
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12513 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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7 / 1987 |
2,534 Words |
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Wiliam H. Lewis
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The tide of discontent with U.S. policy in southern Africa has swept away "constructive engagement" as an effective Reagan administration strategy for the region. The complex and demanding approach fashioned by Chester A. Crocker, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, has been submerged by the waves of crisis and instability that currently afflict southern Africa. Peaceful resolution of disputes, the leitmotif of all American diplomats, has been transformed from a promising strategy into a pious litany.
The existing debility of American policy has multiple causes, not the least of which is a regional dynamic that impels major actors toward violent solutions. Insurgencies in Angola and Mozambique, rising civil disturbances in South Africa, cross-border raids by South African security forces throughout the region, together with economic sanctions by Pretoria intended to induce the so-called frontline states to adopt policies compliant with South African wishes have all brought into question the premises that shaped constructive engagement. After a six-year run, final interment appears close at hand for this disingenuous approach to a region where fractious forces are at work.
What precisely were the rudiments of the constructive engagement approach that now appears overwhelmed by the correlation of antithetical forces in southern Africa? First, its architect, Crocker, propounded a regional perspective that included an East-West dimension. Improved race relations in South Africa would be the ultimate U.S. objective, but a number of intervening "solutions" to local issues in neighboring areas would be required if reformist impulses in Pretoria were to be encouraged. At the heart of the Crocker approach was an improvement in official relations between Washington and Pretoria - a significant atmospheric given the confrontationist posture of the Carter administration - including a reduction of American hectoring on the subject of race relations.
To enhance the Botha regime's receptivity to rapprochement with Washington, a strategy for the remainder of the region needed to be formed. Based on the official record as well as speculation, the essential elements of the strategy included the following:
·Combined efforts to diminish Soviet influence in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe;
·Removal of Cuban forces from Angola as a precondition for Namibia's transition to independence under UN auspices; and
·Acceptance of Pretoria's view that gradual reform of the apartheid system would not be threatened by its neighbors.
Implicit in this approach was State Department acceptance of the view that Pretoria had a legitimate claim to a regional security zone beyond its borders in which it should exercise its overweening military and economic capabilities to keep adversaries at bay. The Unites States also supported President P.W. Botha's contention that these capabilities should be used to sanitize the region - that is, purge Soviet, Cuban, and other radical influences. And, finally, it was agreed that Namibia's independence - which would be the initial testing ground of the validity of constructive engagement - might occur only if a formula could be conjured setting a timetable for simultaneous withdrawal of Cuban and South
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