What did South Africa do during the coldwar? Did they favour either side? Where they a non aligned regional power?
Im curious about the lost anglosphere member
>>1293181
Well they were definitely western aligned.
The Afrikaaners were shit scared of commies.
They thought they were prime targets for mass murder if the communists ever got into power.
>>1293181
They fought the Cubans in Angola.
Cuba's were given lots of planes and equipment by the Soviets, the South Africans didn't have as many planes and had to build some of their own equipment. The Cubans lost the actual fighting but the south Africans had to pull back as they didn't have air superiority. The war ended with both sides pulling out and SA giving Namibia it's independence ( but it was to be a capitalist country ).
SA made nukes with the Israelis, but got rid of them before apartheid ended as they didn't trust the blacks with them.
>>1293181
They were part of the Neutral Bloc really and were too tied up with the Apartheid to have any real part in the Cold War.
>>1293580
Even now the South African defence industry is one of the best on the continent.
>>1293211
Not exactly an unsubstantiated fear desu
>>1293181
They were extremely anti-Communist. This takes like five minutes to find out on wikipedia.
>>1293181
They wanted to be part of the West but what with Apartheid, the West was kind of uneasy about welcoming them. So they more like secret friends since they were certainly anti-communist. South Africa was supported by Israel who were in turn supported by the Americans, so it was help from a distance really. The kind of secret deals that allows you to public condemn but secretly support a nation.
Much like Rhodesia really. Britain couldn't directly help the Rhodies during the Bush War because they were supposed to disagree with their minority government and still pissed off about the UDI. Then again, they could not help ZANLA or ZIPRA either because that would mean directly sponsoring communist insurgents which would have gotten them the ire of NATO and especially the Americans.
>>1293679
And yet the Brits refused to acknowledge the Internal Settlement.
>>1295121
Thatcher wasted a lot of money on an oil embargo against the Rhodes. Worst part of her time in office.
>>1293211
There's literally been 500,000 of them murdered since that happened
>>1293594
That's really not saying much.
>>1296229
They really do make some good things though.
muh denel
>>1293679
there was overt collaboration with israel. south africa has historically had a huge jewish community.
there was back channel collaboration with the US and UK and the english south africans retained (and still retain) their cultural and familial ties with the rest of the anglophonium.
my mom worked for a defence company that, in conjunction with an israeli company, got a hold of US missiles and sliced them up into millimetre segments to reverse engineer them. they had a dozen ladies hand manufacturing IBM tech computers because that was their front business, so they actually had to be able to show some kind of finished product.
south africans developed an arms industry because of the embargo. the arms and tech embargoes were the best thing that happened to apartheid era SA because they were forced to developed a local industrial base that wasn't just an extension of resource extraction. that's why south africa even now is a jarring combination of super high tech and grinding 3rd world poverty.
neil blomkamp's movies encapsulate this perfectly. Elysium was basically south africa - gigantic informal settlements surrounding the most amazing high tech luxury.
>>1293181
There was a lot of fighting in Angola/Namibia.
Though they were certainly anticommunist, the West couldn't support them because
>apartheid
>occupation of Southwest Africa had been declared illegal by the UN
However, there was a lot of covert support for South Africa, particularly in 1976 when Angola just got its independence.
>>1296250
Not just Arms and tech though but the Embargo helped a lot because not everyone adhered to it like you said and SA was and still is a huge economic powerhouse in the region.
