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A founder member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), South Africa embarked on an ambitious nuclear weapons programme contrary to the IAEA Statute. Against the background of the Cold War, South Africa's threat perception included, amongst others, threats posed by the Soviet Union, which was a nuclear-armed state and a supporter of the banned South African liberation movements. Moreover, the South African government's apartheid policies resulted in the country's increased international isolation, which also affected its relations with the IAEA. A major global campaign to isolate the apartheid government in South Africa spilt over to the IAEA, resulting in several punitive actions against South Africa. Tracing the South African case through several phases, this article illustrates the intimate links between state identity, state ideology, nationalism, status, and threat perception. The South African case illustrates the need for sustained scholarship on all the dimensions of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article, based on multi-archival research in the United States of America and South Africa, analyzes the nuclear relationship between South Africa and the US during the Reagan, Bush and Clinton Administrations, by tracing South Africa's journey to non-proliferation during the last decade of the Cold War. During the Reagan years, anti-communism and the Cold War formed a major component of US foreign policy and dictated a closer nuclear relationship between the US and South Africa, coupled with US non-proliferation efforts vis-a-vis South Africa. At the end of the 1980s, the US efforts coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of Soviet support and indeed a nuclear war potential from Southern Africa. In late 1989, South Africa at last gave up its nuclear weapons development and destroyed all its nuclear weapons, followed by signature of the NPT in July 1991. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]