In a world where the unipolar world is being replaced by balkanised power blocs, South Africa must consolidate its regional power.
Few issues illustrate the contradictions of South Africa’s position in the world than the country’s hosting of the South Africa-EU Summit on 13 March and the expulsion of Pretoria’s top diplomat to the United States, Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, via social media.
The South Africa-EU Summit took place in a totally different geopolitical and geoeconomic world from the one seven years ago, in 2018. Not to mention the conditions that prevailed during the inaugural Summit of 2007, after the EU designated South Africa one of its 10 key Strategic Partners globally.
Ambassador Rasool’s expulsion from the US further demonstrates the changed environment which the world, including South Africa, must navigate.
While unformalised, there is no doubt that South Africa and the United States have a mutually strategic relationship, despite the signals that may be emanating from Washington. The question is how South Africa consolidates its strategic role, not only to the US, but to the rest of the world.
In a world where the unipolar world is being replaced by balkanised power blocs led by regional hegemons, South Africa must consolidate its regional power.
Pretoria’s strategic significance
The EU’s choice of South Africa as one of its 10 key strategic partners, to begin with, remains what Pretoria should exploit, nurture and grow in these challenging times. Washington’s grappling with Pretoria also emanates from the superpower’s understanding of the latter’s inherent strategic significance.
South Africa should therefore consolidate its position as one of the key poles in the emerging multipolar world. One could dare argue that Pretoria should be the only pole in Africa in the emerging multipolar world. The country should render itself indispensable to Washington, Beijing, Brussels, London, Riyadh, Moscow and other key centres of the emerging world.
South Africa will have to undergo a paradigm shift in its foreign policy approach, especially in southern Africa and Africa in general. The recalibration of South Africa’s Africa policy will then allow Pretoria to engage with the world on a much stronger footing.
Relatedly, Pretoria will have to boost its military, economic and strategic prowess, these being characteristics of all countries that have powerful roles in global affairs.
South Africa must position itself as one of the critical poles in a multipolar world. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is said to have remarked: “Who do I call when I want to talk to Europe?”
The same question could be asked today by current US Secretary of State Marco Rubio thus: “Who do I call when I want to talk to Africa?”
Washington’s current frustration with Pretoria is an inescapable understanding that South Africa is the line of choice, but when they call, the line is either engaged with Beijing or Moscow, or is broken.
The just-concluded South Africa-EU Summit is a further demonstration that concerning the Kissinger Question, Brussels calls Pretoria, at least from an institutional perspective.
South Africa should be the line of choice on issues ranging from instability in Sudan, eastern DRC, the continent’s green climate, trade and investment and critical minerals governance, to reshaping multilateral governance institutions.
South Africa’s strategic significance is derived from the control and influence it has in its backyard. Pretoria must define its sphere of influence and derive power from a soft and hard sway in that region.
That sphere of influence currently includes the whole of southern Africa, much of East Africa and parts of Central and West Africa. These regions should, in time, reflect more of South Africa’s values in terms of democracy, human rights, strong institutions and adherence to the rule of law.
Different approach
To reposition itself as the pole or anchor of the multipolar world, in Africa, or at least in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa must devise a different foreign policy approach. South Africa’s current foreign policy is values-laden with an over-emphasis on human rights. This makes it difficult for South Africa to navigate the contradictions and hypocrisy inherent in the practice of foreign policy.
National interest must be unapologetically informed in the main by economic and commercial interests. These considerations must, where possible, override other normative considerations, especially when there are no realistic prospects of achieving real change.
South Africa would best rethink its emphasis on what it terms “progressive internationalism”, a principle that has its roots in the anti-colonial struggles. It can be argued that the world has changed a great deal since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Countries that would have been anchors of progressive internationalism have themselves undergone profound changes.
Progressive internationalism was itself an activist foreign policy posture by the now-defunct Soviet Bloc, the then Communist China, of Cuba and of India, mostly framed along the contours of the Cold War. China is now a capitalist society with a veneer of communism, while India has ditched the policy for strategic nonalignment, and Cuba remains a pariah state frozen in time.
It also seems that the inexplicable relationship with Iran falls within this category. Pretoria is still to explain to the South African people how its relationship with Iran and to a large degree the one with Russia advances the national interest.
ANC vs South African foreign policy
Considering that the ANC is inextricably intertwined with democratic South Africa, it may be wise to also distinguish between the party’s foreign policy and that of the country. The overlaps often undermine the latter’s vision and interests.
A rejig of South Africa’s foreign policy on the continent would make quite a substantial impact on establishing the country as an anchor state in Africa. That reconfiguration will begin with Pretoria shedding its posture of being a reluctant hegemon.
South Africa has impostor syndrome when dealing with the continent – the country does not want to be seen playing an assertive and leadership role on the continent.
Initially, this was explained as the democratic state’s desire to distinguish itself from the destructive tendencies of the apartheid regime. Apartheid South Africa wreaked havoc in southern Africa in bombing campaigns that destroyed a lot of infrastructure and lives.
Democratic South Africa, like the EU, is a norm entrepreneur. The country’s constitutional, democratic and human rights cultures are endearing to millions of young Africans, most of whom suffer under the yoke of dictatorships and fragile, conflict-ridden states.
This lays fertile ground for South Africa to export these values to the region and continent. These values could be exported through fostering student exchanges and twinning South African academic institutions with those in the rest of the continent.
South Africa should not be reluctant to utilise its economic, military and strategic endowments to build itself as the African pillar of the emerging multipolar world. The country has the most sophisticated economy, bar its domestic structural challenges.
It has a sizeable and modernised military that has been acting as a diplomatic player, albeit in more peacekeeping than offensive roles. A combination of the country’s economic, military and normative strengths gives Pretoria a strategic role in the continent and world. It is for this reason that powers such as the EU, China, the US and Russia have forged special relationships with South Africa.
In addition, South Africa’s strategic significance has led to the country being invited into exclusive clubs such as the G20, BRICS and ad hoc invitations to G7 summits.
Leverage in Africa
However, instead of consolidating these partnerships, South Africa – the ever-reluctant regional power – has responded by inviting as many African countries as it can into these clubs. South Africa should understand these clubs as giving it leverage within the African continent, thereby buttressing its regional hegemonic role.
There is nothing untoward in South Africa viewing other African countries as competitors in some respects, and cooperative partners in others. In this regard, it is difficult to find the wisdom in advocating for a peer competitor such as Nigeria into the G20 or BRICS.
However, this reflects the misplaced altruism that South African foreign policy sometimes places on issues that should instead be about national interest and consolidation of the country’s power.
A South Africa that plays a significant role as a pillar of the multipolar world would best be able to define and consolidate its sphere of influence. Currently, it is difficult to imagine South Africa’s sphere of influence outside the Southern African Customs Union, Sacu.
Naturally, South Africa should have an uncontested sphere of influence within the SADC region. This would help Pretoria more easily deal with conflicts in the region through both assertive and persuasive means.
The DRC would not, for instance, be courting the US on some critical minerals for security deals if that region had been clearly defined as Pretoria’s sphere of influence.
SA-EU summit
The just-ended South Africa-EU Summit, based on the country being one of only 10 of Brussels’ strategic partners, is a reminder of the immense potential that Pretoria holds as a power in the continent and world.
In contradistinction, the ease with which Washington can declare South Africa’s top diplomat persona non grata for an “infraction” that at best warranted summoning Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool to the White House to explain his utterances as per established diplomatic practice, reflects that Pretoria’s strategic clout requires some reviewing.
More could be done to consolidate that strategic position through a more assertive and strategic foreign policy that begins by securing Pretoria’s African backyard.
Africa would be best off having South Africa as its pole in the emerging multipolar world. South Africa should position itself to be the geoeconomic and geostrategic gateway to Africa. DM