How Deep a Change?

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How Deep a Change?Author(s): Robert I. RotbergSource: Foreign Policy, No. 38 (Spring, 1980), pp. 126-142Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148299 .

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South Africa under Botha (1)

HOW DEEP A CHANGE?

by Robert I. Rotberg

S outh Africa is being compelled to change its tense system of racial domination because of the persistent threat of domestic violence and the suspicion and pressure of a skeptical West. These forces are interrelated, the second

depending largely on the first. Moreover, de-

spite the dramatic increase in the price of gold, South Africa needs external investment in order to assure continued economic growth; South African whites believe that growth will dampen the fires of black discontent, and, as an obvious corollary, will give the blacks a bourgeois stake in the maintenance, rather than the destruction, of the white man's industrial South Africa.

This is a risky strategy, however rapidly implemented and widely supported by the Afrikaners who rule South Africa. Any swift

dismantling of apartheid will meet stiff white resistance. Middle-level bureaucrats are little disposed to implement new policies with alacrity and sympathy, and the Na- tional party leadership-understandably am- bivalent after 30 years of undiluted power- is as yet unready to move boldly and decisively. Thus, the risk that there will be little fundamental change is great. (What is con- sidered rapid change by white South Africans is glacial in American terms.)

Basic questions about the country's future have not, in fact, been resolved. Yet precisely because the South African government is being so tentative, the challenge and the opportunity for the United States (and the West in general) is significant.

Western pressure has stimulated a process

ROBERT I. ROTBERG, professor of political science and history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern Africa.

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of change in South Africa. The rethinking that has been reflected in Prime Minister P. W. Botha's new rhetoric, in the actions of his

government, and in the ferment of late 1979 and early 1980 would have been impossible without a cooling of American friendship. No single action by Botha or by Washington has satisfied those who want the United States to produce a quick fix. Indeed, no single action-no play to the grandstand-is likely or possible in the next few years.

Therefore, the options available to the West are essentially limited and unsatisfying. Yet pressure that really is a combination of carrots and sticks-that treats South Africa as a pariah while demonstrating what it must do to be welcomed back into the Western family of nations-can be a distinct Ameri- can contribution. Statesmanship is knowing when to tempt with a carrot and when to smack with a stick.

Many Americans, including several vocal lobbies, insist that the United States can do much more. Since South Africa is bound to erupt in revolution before long, they argue, the United States should convert its diplo- matic chill into a total economic freeze. It should help isolate South Africa in order to hasten the revolution, and even if the explo- sion is delayed the United States must avoid shoring up apartheid.

Missing Ingredients

No one can gainsay the possibility of revolution in South Africa. Oppression exists. So does injustice. State-organized and -sanc- tioned violence has been commonplace.

The demographic realities are ominous. Already about 22 million Africans, 2.3 million Coloureds, and 800,000 Asians vastly outnumber the 4.3 million whites (about 60 per cent of whom are Afrikaners). By the end of the century, an estimated 5.2 million whites will be overwhelmed by 36 million Africans, 3.6 million Coloureds, and 1 million Asians. The cities, now inhabited by twice as many Africans as whites, will have four times as many Africans as whites.

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Despite these numbers and despite the discontent of the majority, South Africa is far from revolution. It is doubtful that the country has entered the period of hopefulness that has elsewhere often been a prelude to reaction followed by revolution. South Africa's underprivileged cannot follow the Iranian model and neutralize the power of a ruling elite by converting to their cause the lesser ranks of the army. The South African army is predominantly white. About half of the police are black, but by design they routinely have access to few arms. Unlike the masses in the French, American, Russian, and Iranian revolutions, South African blacks are unlikely soon to possess weapons more destructive than sticks, stones, and homemade bombs.

There are small arms in the hands of black South Africans, as the attack on a Pretoria bank in late January demonstrated. But given octopus-like governmental control of the towns and the countryside and an abundance of informers, the smuggling of arms has so far proved difficult. Equally hard is the amass- ing of funds to buy arms or the development of a network to distribute them.

Important, too, is the military might of South Africa. In Third World terms, it is awesome. And the South African military would be assisted in dealing with an uprising because of the way in which blacks have been grouped into urban locations that are easily surrounded and contained. By and large, these locations have been kept distant from ports, airfields, and most other strategic sites.

There is a further ingredient missing: revolutionary leadership. Many of South Africa's accepted black leaders were long ago driven underground or compelled to flee the country. At home, many of those made credi- ble by their struggle are imprisoned, otherwise restricted, banned (and under surveillance), or dead. As quickly as the young-who, in their alienation, fueled the fury of the So- weto rising in 1976-become leaders, they too are detained. Above ground are urban men and women whom the state tries to in- timidate and who, because of their visibility,

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can speak only of change, not of revolution. It is the unexpected, rather than the specter

of revolution, that puts pressure on Botha. Men and women now unknown-ayatollahs hitherto unsuspected-may well arise to lead their people toward revolution. So may guer- rillas infiltrating and fomenting disorder. But the balance of power and terror, and the need for so many ingredients to be mixed in so precise an order, make it unlikely that South Africa's salvation will come in the next few years by revolution.

This is not to suggest that South Africa will be free from violence. For the black cities can explode suddenly as did Soweto, New Brighton, and Guguletu in 1976. Black industrial workers can turn angry. Although the police and the army are doubtless able to contain episodes of recurring violence, such tumult chills white confidence, harms South Africa's precarious economy, and shakes the confidence of the ruling Afrikaners.

Any violence, and resulting repression, could invite international responses. Inva- sions by the armies of black-ruled states, com- plete economic boycotts by Western coun- tries, and Soviet or Western blockades of South African ports are today unlikely for obvious political and practical reasons. But Botha is wise to fear circumstances in which South Africa would be more isolated and therefore more vulnerable to a combination of internal assault and outside consternation. As a pragmatist, he must fight the escalating demands for disinvestment and for disrup- tion of the process by which South Africa obtains its bootlegged oil. Botha knows that the world will not relax its interest in South Africa so long as the black majority in the country is discontented.

Flexing Black Muscle

Pressures from below, especially black militancy during 1976 and since, the threat of rioting leading toward revolution, and the hostility of much of the world have already eroded the long-standing ideological tenets of Afrikanerdom. So hasthe stain on

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the ruling oligarchy's moral leadership, growing out of revelations in 1979 that the government had covertly tried to buy influence overseas, established a right-wing Eng- lish-language daily in Johannesburg, and otherwise squandered official funds on du- bious and unsuccessful ventures. Botha's pred- ecessor, B. Johannes Vorster, was forced to resign his position as president as a result.

Botha even seems aware that separate development is outdated. The homelands that have become "independent"-Transkei, Bo- phuthatswana, and Venda-have gone un- recognized, and have been largely ignored, by the international community. Most of the

remaining seven homelands intend to resist "independence." But even if the impover- ished, overcrowded pseudostates had a future as quasi- or semiautonomous bodies (all now derive at least 80 per cent of their budgets from the South African Parliament), they have failed to attract Africans away from the urban areas. The modern sector of the South African economy, based in the cities, can hardly do without their labor.

At one recent political meeting, where Botha discussed the need for more housing for blacks, a white heckler yelled, "Send them to the homelands." Botha replied, "My friend, if they were all there, who would bring you your coffee in the morning?"

The flexing of black muscle, reinforced by outside pressure, has enabled the Botha government to perceive its own self-interest with increasing clarity. Botha's closest advisers, many of whom are drawn from the military, have urged him to try to win the hearts and minds of Africans. They know that the possibility of guerrilla or other external attack can best be met if the urgency of internal discontent (and the prospect of a second, domestic front) is reduced.

Military as well as political thinking is thus behind the modernization of apartheid. The attitude of the prime minister that was revealed in August 1979 gave a pragmatic tone to the South African debate. It stemmed directly from a political-military re-

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appraisal of the limited nature of South Africa's options: Given the hostility of the West and the tinder of the ghettos, only a major effort to give blacks a stake in a gradually evolving South Africa would do.

Botha spoke soothingly in late August in Soweto, the sprawling home of a million Africans near Johannesburg. "We are all South Africans," he said, "and we must act in that spirit towards each other." That would seem like common sense to most outsiders, but in South Africa it verges on heresy. On another occasion, sounding very different from his prime ministerial predecessors, Botha said, "I hate no black man. I hate no Coloured

Botha knows that the world will not relax its interest in South Africa so long as the black majority in the country is discontented.

man. The same God that made me is responsible for them being in South Africa. My God is not only for Afrikaners." Before a provin- cial congress of the National party, he enun- ciated a new goal: "to improve the quality of life of all people in this country." He even promised to consider revamping the laws regulating sexual relations and marriage across color lines: "I will not tolerate any laws on the statute book that insult people."

In the face of bitter opposition from white trade unionists, Botha also agreed for the first time to let all blacks form and join labor unions. His government had at first excluded the bulk of the black labor force from this privilege, but he responded to the pleas of white-owned industry and black workers that economic growth and domestic peace could best be assured through legalized unions.

Botha maintained his defense of reason- able change despite a predictable white back- lash, dramatized by a falling National party vote in a series of parliamentary bye-elections, and despite the loss of a seat in an urban constituency (the National party's first bye-

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election loss in more than a decade) to the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), the white parliamentary opposition. His message throughout was pragmatic: For whites to survive, they must change. "We must adapt or die," he said bluntly.

That message has long been voiced by the PFP and by blacks of all persuasions. It is a message echoed with increasing fervor by liberal Afrikaners in the journalistic, busi- ness, and academic communities. In agree- ment with them, Botha declared that South Africa could go into the future "only with a message of love rather than of hate. Love for South Africa and all its people, as well as for peace, stability, and development. We are not a party of hate. If you ask me to lead a

party of hate, I am not available as leader."

A Smidgen of Power

Botha became prime minister in 1978 after 30 years as a political organizer and 13 years as minister of defense. Without completing his university training, he joined the Na- tional party, was elected to Parliament in 1948, and steadily worked his way to the

top ranks of the Afrikaner political hierarchy. He was known throughout those years as a

party loyalist, a minister of unremarkable

imagination, and a hard-liner. He was called a "cowboy" and nicknamed "Piet Skiet," or "Pete who shoots first and asks later." His

overriding trait, however, was realism. Each of his gruff, unbending predecessors

was, in his own way, also pragmatic. For no matter what they say, Afrikaners have al-

ways sought the best attainable, not the ideal, solution to the South African dilemma. That Botha has proclaimed a major new policy direction reflects no sudden conversion to new principles. It demonstrates a profound awareness of South Africa's weakened internal and world position and a calculated assess- ment that mere stonewalling offers no solution. "There is a relationship between South Africa's domestic policies and its international strategic option," he has conceded.

Despite the new rhetoric, Botha's goals

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differ more tactically than strategically from those of his predecessors. He means to preserve his minority's power, but he means to do so in a new, co-optive, modernizing, economically responsible---even creative- manner. To do otherwise would exacerbate the likelihood of domestic trouble and continue to alienate the West.

Even so, Botha's strategy has a limited likelihood of success. It may bring real ben- efits to Africans, but to them it still represents too little far too late. They are no longer content with the modest modernization of social and economic apartheid. They want fundamental alterations in the very structure of society of a kind that Botha is not yet ready to concede.

Vocal blacks, whose views are articulated by Nthato Motlana, chairman of the Soweto Committee of Ten, or by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, leader of the Zulu-based Inkatha movement and chief minister of the Kwa- Zulu homeland, want to participate fully in the process of government. They want a voice in matters that affect their lives and the des- tinies of their children. Not surprisingly, they want a say in decisions about the development and the allocation of resources in South Africa. They want but a stake in the country and a share in its government.

"If Botha is talking seriously about stop- ping the revolution," said Allan Boesak, a leading Coloured minister in the Dutch Re- formed Church, "then he must talk about equal citizenship and full political participation for blacks and fundamental economic and social change." Bishop Desmond Tutu, the outspoken secretary general of the South African Council of Churches, puts the problem more strongly: Botha is "talking about applying an inhuman system more humanely. Things are changing, anybody will grant that, but as yet there has been no fundamental change."

What Boesak, Buthelezi, Motlana, Tutu, and others want is anathema to Afrikaners, because real change threatens the perpetuation of undiluted Afrikaner power. By the time

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Afrikaners are ready to concede what blacks now want, the blacks may be dissatisfied with a grant of so little. Alan Paton understood this obvious fact long ago. His classic novel, Cry, The Beloved Country, ends with a be- reaved black father's lament: "I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they turn to loving they will find we are turned to hating."

Botha wants to encourage greater economic opportunities for blacks, removing barriers to their advancement in industry, dismantling obstacles to the accumulation of black com- mercial power in the black cities, and gen- erally limiting discriminatory practices in economic spheres. Botha's economic adviser, Simon Brand, recently made this point: "Blacks must be allowed to take part fully in the free enterprise system if we want them to

accept it, defend it, and make it their own." Botha's government has hinted that black

homelands will soon be enlarged and white farms and towns incorporated into these African areas. The larger urban ghettos may obtain a form of home rule. Universi- ties, segregated since 1959, may gradually be reintegrated, and proportionally more funds may be devoted to black schooling. Discrim- ination by price may replace discrimination by color on trains, in restaurants, in country post offices, and in other public places. Botha intends at least to moderate the social sting of white rule.

Cabinet ministers have also talked about an array of political compromises that could eventually give blacks a smidgen of power while retaining real control in the hands of Afrikaners. One recent proposal would re- vise the national constitution to share some regional power with Asians and Coloureds (but not Africans). There has also been an informal exploration of federal and can- tonal models: A white-run central government would in some as yet unspecified way parcel out to the local governments of black homelands and urban townships sufficient authority to approximate limited power sharing at the regional level. National deci-

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sions would still be taken by whites or by a

majority of whites and a diluted group of Africans.

Botha has even talked grandly about a southern African constellation of states, a kind of overarching grand governmental co- prosperity sphere from Zaire southward. In his vision, South Africa's economic and military might would provide the central energy of such a firmament. Black states that are now genuinely independent as well as those homelands recently granted local independence would be invited to join. The homelands that are still part of South Africa would also be part of the constellation, but some kind of dual nationality would exist for the citizens of the homelands who did not want to lose their South African passports and other per- quisites. The scheme may be as vague in Botha's mind as it is fuzzy in the recounting. Would it be confederal or federal in construction? Who would control its operations? How would it be launched? What would be the advantages for Africans?

These questions as yet have no answers. It is obvious to outsiders, however, that no African state would agree to be recolonized by white South Africa. All-even the small- est-will shun formal economic ties until South African whites have begun to share power. They may accept South African economic assistance and increased trade, but without strings attached.

The Task of the West

The constellation is only the most recent proposal to advance the notion of very grad- ual power sharing. Under other variants, the political potential of the black majority would be realized slowly-by limiting the number of Africans in a rearranged Parliament, by imposing educational or property qualifica- tions to hold down the number of African voters, by introducing a complicated form of proportional representation, or by rearranging the geographical structure of South Afri- can society. The present collection of prov- inces and homelands could be rescrambled

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(perhaps on a Nigerian model), and larger and smaller states-some with black and some with white majorities-could be linked feder- ally to a racially mixed central government.

Outsiders find it hard to understand why partition is not the simple answer to the problems of South Africa. But South Africa is not India, Palestine, Korea, or Cyprus. Civil war has not yet sundered the nation. A sixth of the total population controls vir- tually all the resources of the country. Thus, a simple division of the country is bound to leave the whites with a disproportionate share of the wealth and to cheat the Africans. South Africa's economy is integrated; to divide it equitably, by historic contribution and present population, would be difficult.

South Africans want to be brought in from the cold, and only the United States can provide the necessary warmth.

If one tried to crowd the whites back into the southwestern section of Cape Province, what would come of their fair share of the wealth of Witwatersrand? If they were re- turned to the land in the Cape, how would they be assured of future supplies of water in a country short of that resource? And to which side (or would there be several sides?) does one apportion Coloureds and Asians? Partition, in sum, is the unhappy compromise that follows a bitter, draining conflict. It does not readily commend itself to anyone in today's South Africa.

All of these schemes have a theoretical ap- peal to South Africans who want desperately to avoid bloodshed. There are obvious advantages for whites, for though the schemes look ahead to a politically reconstructed South Africa, they minimize the immediate threat to the whites who are dominant today. But spokesmen for the disadvantaged increas- ingly disdain any compromise that preserves too much white power and forever prevents

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blacks from deciding the destiny of their

country. They are chary of federal rearrange- ments, unless the mineral wealth and the ara- ble lands of the entire country are reappor- tioned fairly. Blacks also insist upon a reallo- cation of power and resources within any federation. No perpetuation of the status quo will do.

Because there is a new ferment in South Africa, and because blacks know that Afri- kaners will give up privilege before they concede the guts of real power, Motlana, Buthe- lezi, and other black spokesmen emphasize that compromises must be negotiated. They will reject anything imposed by the whites.

They no longer want to be co-opted or di- vided or seduced by promises of economic or social advance. They are peaceful men who know that their followers can hardly be re- strained forever, even by South Africa's might. More and more, they fear that only new out- bursts of violence will persuade Botha's government to negotiate meaningfully.

Botha has reinforced that fear in recent months. Alongside his conciliatory state- ments are others by which he has assured fellow Afrikaners that the dismantling of social apartheid would not mean giving the vote to blacks. A white politician would have to be

exceptionally foolhardy to say otherwise. Yet discussions with the intellectual Afrikaners who now advise Botha, private talks with a few of his cabinet ministers, and Delphic public utterances by members of the Afri- kaner elite persuade this outsider that the oligarchy ruling South Africa still thinks that black political demands can be dismissed. "I am giving you a final warning," Botha told a militant Coloured group. "One man, one vote is out; that is to say, never."

How to concede meaningful portions of power without submerging themselves is the white problem. How to secure that meaningful share without enduring a wholesale blood bath is the black problem.

The tough task of the West is to help Afri- kaners recognize that their self-interest lies in resolving questions of power by negotiation

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rather than by confrontation and repression. The ultimate interests of Americans and of white South Africans are probably not very different. Both desire long-term stability, continued economic prosperity, and the crea- tion of a just society. Although their per- spectives are quite separate, both also want to deny the Soviet Union an opportunity to in- volve itself on the side of the underprivileged.

The West must use incentives as well as punishments. The United States, preferably in private, needs to encourage whites and blacks to bargain. But it is also in the Amer- ican interest to meddle and become involved -again privately-for even the most cau- tious South Africans can sometimes be em- boldened by a deft nudge and the promise of specific (particularly economic) concessions. Deft nudges may prove fruitless at present, but renewed domestic troubles may make them more effective. The United States thus needs to remain engaged, if publicly frosty.

The West could do more than watch and wait for its moment to intervene skillfully with advice. It could accelerate the process of change by force. It could launch full-scale air and sea attacks. And it could invade or sponsor an invasion with the cooperation of, say, Nigeria. But those are far-fetched possi- bilities that would be supported-in the United States, at least-by only a handful of extremists. All other strategies are essentially attempts to raise the economic or psy- chic costs of apartheid and therefore to induce South Africa to alter its racial and political system. As yet, however, only an indirect relationship has been demonstrated between heightened levels of cost and dramatic shifts in policy. In 1979 the loss of Iranian oil supplies cost (mostly white) consumers dearly. Their gasoline became among the most expensive ($2.45 a gallon) in the world. Speed limits were cut back and gas made unavailable on weekends. But this one form of economic cost and Botha's new attitude toward blacks cannot be linked directly.

It is wrong to assume that the few kinds of noose tightening that are politically plau-

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sible in the West-arms embargoes and limited economic embargoes--can have a dramatic impact on South Africa's perception of its self-interest. More stringent methods of economic arm twisting flunk two tests: Blockades of South Africa's ports (discussed in the United Nations) and total boycotts of trade and finance (envisaged by American and British pressure groups) fail to accord with American or British political and economic realities. Nor can it be demonstrated that a blockade that prevented petroleum from en- tering South Africa would cripple the economy quickly enough to make Botha or his successors sue for peace or abdicate.

South Africa depends on oil for only 25 per cent of its energy needs. Admittedly, this includes a very large portion of the transport sector. But any emergency would be miti- gated by the existence of stockpiled supplies and, by 1982, of diesel oil and gasoline pro- duced from coal, of which South Africa has vast supplies.

The West could, in wild theory, refuse to purchase South African gold, thus depriving the country of 35 per cent of its annual export earnings. But that is another far-fetched and unreal possibility. Boycotting South African manganese, vanadium, chrome, and platinum would hurt the West, especially the United States, far more than South Africa.

Grit, Obstinacy, and Stamina

There is little leverage to be gained through disinvestment, particularly if it is carried out by American corporations alone. The U.S. stake is tiny. Less than 1 per cent of the U.S. return on overseas investment comes from South Africa, and only construction contrac- tors like the Fluor Corp. depend greatly upon their profits from South Africa. Britain is a much larger investor (roughly $8 billion vs. America's $1.9 billion) and could have greater leverage; but Britain depends on the return on those investments and on its trade with South Africa for a healthy proportion of its overseas revenues. Britain is unlikely to be bold.

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Seen in many antiapartheid circles as a panacea, the piecemeal departure of American firms from South Africa would have little lasting economic (and even less political) impact there. Other transnational companies- South African, Japanese, or European- would simply take their place, and the manu- facture or servicing of equipment would continue. Psychologically, each withdrawal probably does have an effect, but even a suc- cession of psychological blows cannot be quantified positively in terms of direct policy results. (The moral question for Americans is an entirely separate issue.)

Like the dinosaur, South Africa may be unable to adapt to altered environments.

Botha has a more positive economic incen- tive. His government has seen Western inves- tors and lenders react to both stability and instability. The more it appears to outsiders that apartheid is being relaxed-the provision of union rights, employment opportunities, and educational facilities all lean in the right direction-the more they tend to invest, and presumably the more they will invest and lend. The informal carrot, therefore, holds as much promise as any thrashing about with sticks. Moreover, the only way for South Africa to reduce black unemployment in the cities (now at about 25 per cent of those seek- ing work) and to provide jobs for the alien- ated young is through expanded investment from abroad. S. P. Botha, the minister of manpower utilization, recently warned his colleagues that work would have to be found for millions of blacks in order "to stave off a revolutionary situation."

The government of the United States represents a series of crosscutting constituencies, and thus it cannot be expected to speak to and on South Africa with a single voice. Even if by some miracle the executive and legislative branches constructed a joint policy, the leverage on South Africa would remain largely

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indirect. Washington can promise moral- even economic, nuclear, or strategic-support for far-reaching changes that are decided upon in consultation with representative Africans. It can promise economic incentives if agree- ments are concluded that lead to reasonably full political participation. Both forms of backing are desperately sought by official South Africans. Whatever they say to the contrary, South Africans want to be brought in from the cold, and only the United States can provide the necessary warmth.

It is true that the United States also needs South Africa. It desires South Africa's steel- hardening and pollution-reducing minerals. But to the total disbelief of South African whites, it no longer worries unduly about the sea-lanes around the Cape of Good Hope. Nor does or should the United States view South Africa in white minority hands as an effective barrier to communism. Quite the re- verse. The very persistence of white rule de- stabilizes southern Africa and provides an excuse for Soviet involvement. The longer South Africa delays rearranging its political future, the more Soviet adventurism is assisted and black moderates become isolated.

Afrikaners have retreated before under pressure. They did so during the nineteenth century and after the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. They watched and waited through the 1920s and 1930s and then pounced politically in 1948. No one should underestimate their grit in adversity, their stamina, or their obstinacy. But they are capable of compromising their principles. They did so in the 1960s under Prime Min- ister Hendrik Verwoerd. They did so again in the early 1970s under Vorster, when South Africa began reaching out to independent African states. Botha's awareness of the nar- rowing options has compelled them further to concentrate their minds.

This process will continue. But in all likelihood the government will move more slowly than the ongoing crisis seems to war- rant. It will refuse to grant full political participation to Africans. As a result, the speed

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of change will subsequently be increased by urban unrest, by labor agitation, by guerrilla assaults, or by some combination of the three. The nature of that combination will be influenced by the timing of international con- cern and pressure. It may even be influenced decisively by the coincidental intervention of some catastrophe-a mine disaster, a train wreck, or a flood--or by a worldwide up- heaval. At that point white resistance and overreaction could conceivably lead to large- scale violence; the great revolutions of the past were punctuated by accidents and idio- syncratic tumults more than by intentional escalations of violence.

In the absence of revolution, evolutionary beginnings may be delayed too long. Like the dinosaur, South Africa may be unable to adapt to altered environments. Then violence will become common; the chasm between blacks and whites will grow, and, however Botha and his successors try, a well-managed transition may become less and less conceiv- able. The United States must do what the Carter administration thought it could avoid -temper withdrawal and denial with in- ducement, bargain using the more savory Kissinger ploys, and moderate the chill if and when South Africans respond with a new strategy as well as an updated tactical drill. It is no easy task to bring Afrikanerdom to accept the inescapability of some kind of majority rule. The United States must push and pull. It must continue to kick hard at South Africa's shins, but less often and less hard if and when Botha talks serious politics with Buthelezi, Motlana, and other leaders.

To offer such a modest plan gives cold comfort to those who want simple solutions to a problem of absorbing complexity. Alas, there are no guaranteed ways by which the United States can compel South African whites to relinquish power. But to recognize the immediate limitations of direct influence hardly implies despairing, panicking, or ig- noring the role that the United States must continue to play as South Africa's external conscience.

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How Deep a Change?