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This article highlights some key aspects in the development of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF), in particular the politics surrounding its major arms purchases during the late Cold War period and afterwards. It argues that between 1980 and 1990 the BDF’s attempts to bolster its lethal capabilities in response to growing regional contentions were stifled by political pressure emanating from apartheid South Africa, the region’s superpower. During the 1980s, the South African government had ramped up its efforts to destabilise neighbouring countries that were sympathetic to the African National Congress (ANC) including Botswana. In light of this coercive environment, the BDF’s policy of procuring armaments was driven by the regional security context within the Cold War but was also complicated by the geopolitics of the continent. The article also explores the post-Cold War political dynamics following the independence of South West Africa (now Namibia) and the end of apartheid in South Africa. While these two key events and Botswana’s good diamond revenues favoured a more expansive procurement policy for the BDF, they presented new challenges to BDF efforts to develop certain lethal capabilities.

The Botswana Defence Force’s Policy of Arms Procurement in the Late Cold War Period and beyond