The impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on United States' security assistance to Southern Africa : a quantitative analysis

Prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States government deemed Southern Africa to be of no strategic value. An impoverished region with a wealth of problems, Southern Africa mattered little to the United States government who approached regional security cooperation with a primarily minimalist approach. During the pre-9/11 years the United States did provide Southern African governments with some security sector assistance, primarily in direct military training and law enforcement programmes. Other areas such as peace support operations assistance, border and transportation security, and counter-proliferation training were marginal, as were arms authorisations. Everything changed on September 11th, 2001. The result of the attacks was a massive security and foreign policy shift for America. In response, the United States launched a Global War on Terror, which truly affected its relations with regions in every part of the globe, Southern Africa included. This thesis examines pre- and post-9/11 security assistance from the United States government to the nations of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in the time periods 1998-2001 and 2002-2005. Chapter Two focuses on pre-9/11 security cooperation and Chapter Three on post-9/11 security cooperation. Each chapter quantifies bilateral treaties and agreements, joint military exercises, military training, peace support operations training, arms authorisations and grants, nuclear security training, law enforcement training, and border and transportation security training and overall training expenditure. Chapter Four then pools the data together and provides a pre vs. post- 9/11 analysis of collective security cooperation. Results are stated in percent changes from pre- 9/11 levels. Training and arms per soldier ratios are calculated based on the data to produce regional rankings of United States' assistance. Chapter Five offers conclusive observations and recommendations.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Political Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Petersen, Michael E

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Seegers, Annette

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11601

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/11601