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French-South African Arms Trade Relations As a Community of Practice, 1955-1979

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French-South African Arms Trade Relations As a Community of Practice, 1955-1979 French-South African arms trade relations as a community of practice, 1955-1979 Roel M. (Martin) van der Velde School of Languages and Area Studies Under supervision of Professor Tony Chafer, Dr Natalya Vince, and Mr Emmanuel Godin This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Portsmouth June 2017 1 Abstract This study reconstructs the French-South African arms trade in French military helicopters between 1955 and 1979, which flourished in defiance of international reprobation of Apartheid. New evidence reveals the shaping influence to policy of inter-state social relations at operational levels, leading to extended trajectories beyond the accepted historical milestones of the 1963 and 1977 UN arms embargoes. By retracing an emerging commercial process of arms trade spanning two decades, the crystallization of elements of the French and South African defence communities is identified, constituting de facto trade policy despite their diplomatic divergence. French promotional brokering in the mid-1950s laid the unseen foundation for the professionalisation of military procurement between unlikely partners. French interdepartmental oversight increasingly problematized propositions for weapons for use in state repression against populations in Southern Africa. Under pressure to gain military autonomy the South African Defence Force procured French aircraft, ironically leading to licensed local aircraft production under French tutelage, andadoption of French technical expertise and defence organisation. The French unilateral arms embargo against Israel in 1967 caused the French-South African relationship to mature. Following greater international and operational pressures that led to counter-revolutionary alliances in Southern Africa, alternative supply arrangements were created between French and South African defence communities, notably through trade of helicopters-in-parts. Rather than being overtaken by diplomatic withdrawal, by the mid-1970s the inter-community enterprise of arms trade was galvanized by operational-level actors, continued away from visible executive control. New primary evidence is presented to argue that the French presidential adoption of arms embargoes in 1970, 1975 and 1977 represented not a sea-change in arms trade policy, but the maturing of a parallel and covert military-industrial channel within the French ministerial constellation, directed at South Africa and the African continent. In sum, this thesis offers new historical evidence on an extended business life cycle in French- South African trade and its correlation to, and detachment from, national policies. Moreover, the importance of practice tracing of middle-level interactions in French arms trade and defence policy connects with new debates on French involvement in Cold War regional defence arrangements in and outside its traditional African sphere of influence. 2 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Author’s declaration ................................................................................................................................ 6 Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 9 Introduction: French-South African arms trade relations as a community of practice, 1955-1979 ....................... 10 The narrative of French-South African trade ........................................................................................ 12 Origins and extension of the trade relationship ............................................................................ 15 Problem of assigning arms trade to policy: four candidates .................................................................. 16 Diplomacy & foreign policy .......................................................................................................... 17 Arms trade within French and South African defence policies ..................................................... 18 Economics and industrial development ......................................................................................... 18 French defence industry ................................................................................................................ 20 Top-down analysis: the role of the French president ............................................................................ 24 Implementation of arms trade at ministerial and sub-ministerial level ........................................ 26 Institutional actors: the military-industrial complex .................................................................... 27 Policy networks ............................................................................................................................. 32 Capturing arms trade at the middle level ............................................................................................... 33 Defence communities ..................................................................................................................... 34 Case study of helicopters ............................................................................................................... 34 Empirical and conceptual aims of thesis ............................................................................................... 35 Sources .................................................................................................................................................. 37 Scale and balance of research ....................................................................................................... 38 Problems of access ........................................................................................................................ 39 Process ................................................................................................................................................... 40 Practice .................................................................................................................................................. 41 Areas for expansion ............................................................................................................................... 42 Chapter outline ...................................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 4 ....................................................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 5 ....................................................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 6 ....................................................................................................................................... 45 3 Chapter 1: Methodology. Arms trade relations as a community of practice ...................................................... 46 Addressing the flaws of state-centric analysis ....................................................................................... 47 From ‘Why arms trade?’ to ‘How possible?’ ................................................................................ 50 Arms trade as a process ................................................................................................................ 52 A simplified empirical model of arms trade interaction ........................................................................ 55 Arms trade as practice .................................................................................................................. 57 The constitutive factors of the Community elaborated .................................................................. 60 Arms trade practice as a community ............................................................................................. 62 A note on networks ........................................................................................................................ 64 On Method ............................................................................................................................................. 68 Periodisation ................................................................................................................................. 68 Chapter 2: Promotion ................................................................................................................................ 71 French brokering of its operational experience ..................................................................................... 72 South African strategic boundaries and operational thinking ..............................................................
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