The Arms Industries in Israel, South Africa and Yugoslavia During the Cold War

580 Pages·2014·26.61 MB·English

Independence or Dependence?
The Arms Industries
in
Israel, South Africa and Yugoslavia
During the Cold War
A Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to
The University of London
London School of Economics and Political Science
by
Leon Mangasarian
UMI Number: U062481
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Abstract
This dissertation examines the development of armaments produc­
tion in Israel, South Africa and Yugoslavia and the implications
thereof regarding military import dependency, arms exports, and
defence production cooperation among developing arms producers.
The dissertation concentrates on strategic and political
issues of Third world arms production and does not deal with
questions of arms industries and development.
The dissertation makes three broad arguments:
First, that truly indigenous arms production hardly exists
in the three case study countries. I illustrate this by showing
the heavy dependence of Israel, South Africa and Yugoslavia on
foreign technology, licences, foreign components and foreign
capital for all major — and many minor — weapons manufacturing
projects undertaken since the 1960s.
Second, that despite billions of dollars invested in build­
ing up respective defence industry sectors, all three states (or
successor states in the case of Yugoslavia) remained dependent on
imports of most of the same major weapons systems at the end of
the Cold War as they were 30 years earlier. Embargo^ of systems
such as fighter aircraft, ships and tanks by the old arms suppli­
er oligopoly was the key reason for the initiation of arms pro­
duction in all three countries. But the cancellation or failure
of key arms manufacturing projects in all three countries, such
as the Israeli Lavi fighter, means that far from achieving weap­
ons supply independence, this dependency is set to continue into
the next century
Third, that despite the above two points, Israel, South
Africa, Yugoslavia and other Third World arms producers have
played an expanding and important role the world arms trade and
proliferation of military technology since the 1970s. This
seeming paradox will be illustrated by contrasting Israel's
growing dependency on the United States for advanced weapons,
capital and technology from 1970 to 1990, with the Israeli role
as the single most important UN arms sanctions buster to South
Africa from 1977 to the early 1990s; as an arms supplier to
Argentina during the 1982 Falklands / Malvinas War, to Iran
during the Iran-Iraq War and to Guatemala after the 1977 U.S.
arms cut-off.
The dissertation concludes that while some arms production
is bound to continue in all three states (or successor states),
major weapons manufacturing projects are a thing of the past and
will be initiated — if at all — with the cooperation of arms
industries from the very industrialised powers which Israel,
South Africa and Yugoslavia sought total independence from
through indigenous arms production during the Cold War.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Page 1
Part One — Introduction
Introduction Page 2
Chapter One Page 18
Civil-military relations and
the military-industrial complex
in Israel, South Africa and Yugoslavia
Part Two — Case Studies
Chapter Two Page 74
Israeli armaments production:
a case study
Chapter Three Page 158
South African armaments
production:
a case study
Chapter Four Page 212
Yugoslavian armaments
production:
a case study
Part Three — Arms export and imports
Chapter Five Page 261
Israel and South Africa:
A dual level relationship
matures
Chapter Six Page 316
Arms exports from Israel
South Africa and Yugoslavia and
some diplomatic and economic
motivations
Chapter Seven Page 416
Continued arms import dependency:
Israeli, South African and Yugoslav
weapons, military technology and
nuclear imports in the 1970s and 80s
Part Four — Conclusion
Chapter Eight Page 488
Conclusion
Part Five — Appendices and Bibliography
Appendices Page 504
Bibliography Page 545
Acknowledgments
Many people both inspired and helped push this dissertation
toward completion over the past years. My supervisor at the
London School of Economics, Dr. Christopher Coker, was demanding,
yet patient — to him I owe a special debt. The LSE's Philip
Windsor provided numerous, and always erudite, discourses on
Strategic Studies during my four years at the 'School*. My
undergraduate tutor. Dr. Hugh Macdonald, first steered me toward
the field of Strategic Studies as did Prof. John Armstrong of the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jane Hunter, publisher of Israeli Foreign Affairs. deserves
special thanks for helping track down numerous sources on Israel
and South Africa.
Scheherazade Daneshkhu, Hugh Dyer and Spyros Economides, fellow
editors of the LSE's Millennium; Journal of International Studies
provided friendship and advice over the past years as did Chris­
tian Chavagneux, Joao Cravinho, Carol Evans, Dirk Rumberg, and
Joachim Schoettes.
Special thanks are due to my old friend Robert Gerloff, who
provided me with a home on very short notice during several
working visits to the United States.
Last but not least I want to thank my mother and father for their
kind support and patience over the past years.
- L.C.M. Berlin. Mav 1992
Part One — Introduction
Introduction
This dissertation examines the development of armaments produc­
tion in Israel, South Africa and Yugoslavia and the implications
thereof regarding military import dependency, arms exports, and
weapons production co-operation among developing arms producers.
As long as the threat and use of force remains an element of
world affairs, the significance of defence industries to the
study of international relations remains considerable, insofar as
such industries contribute in allowing states to deter attack and
use force.1 The rapid growth of arms production in the develop­
ing countries in the past two decades makes these states increas­
ingly important subjects in the field of strategic studies.
During the 1980s, Third World arms manufacturers produced
between 5 and 10 percent of all arms sold to developing countries
— up from a tiny fraction of this figure in the 1960s. ^ Coun­
tries like Israel and Brazil are listed among the top ten or
fifteen arms exporters in the world, with respective annual
military sales worth over $1 billion. As a result, the oligopoly
of Northern states — the former Soviet Union, the United States
and Europe — which dominated world weapons production and sales
for much of this century, has been seriously eroded.
But Third world arms producers still represent new, and
somewhat neglected actors in the proliferation of conventional
and even nuclear weapons. The number of academic works on arms